I Dream of Jeannie: The Prequel
by CAJeannieFan57
Summary: IDOJ - The story of Tony, Jeannie and Roger BEFORE the series started.
1. Chapters 1 4

SEQ CHAPTER h r 1**I DREAM OF JEANNIE - THE PREQUEL:**

**THE STORY OF TONY, ROGER AND JEANNIE**

**by**** CAJeannieFan57/Donna**

**with**** story assistance from OneOfRoger'sGirls/Jeni**

**CHAPTER 1 - TONY - THE COLLEGE DAYS**

Two more weeks. As he rounded the corner walking towards his fraternity house, Tony realized that he only had two more weeks left of his college career. It had gone by pretty quickly. After graduating from high school in Fowlers Corners, Ohio, Tony had decided to attend college a little further from home, at Ohio State University in Columbus. It was a good way to get a little distance from his old high school sweetheart, Bonnie Crenshaw, who wanted to get married. He didn't - he had a lot of plans and marriage wasn't one of them, for a LONG time.

Majoring in geological sciences at OSU, he hadn't had much time for fun there either. His class schedule was grueling - class upon class in mathematics and all areas of science, but especially geology. Every night he would go back to the fraternity house, have a snack, and hit the books. Occasionally he'd go out with a girl or two, but no one really interested him. He slept with one or two of them, just to make sure that he knew he was all man. He found out that he was definitely a man, but just hadn't found the right girl yet.

Periodically he would go home to visit his parents and his little sister Tracy. His mother always had an arsenal of girls ready to make a date while he was home, and it was all he could do to resist most of them. Most of the girls were very pretty, but didn't seem to have a brain in their heads. As for Bonnie, she moved away after his freshman year and he didn't have to deal with that strain when he got home. Thank goodness! His little sister was also picking on him. She had friends with big sisters who weren't married, weren't dating, and usually were dogs, at least compared to the girls his mother found for him.

Even his best friend Michael from high school days would try to get him to date various girls. Michael had gone to trade school and then gotten drafted for a couple of years. He came back from Korea none the worse for wear, but with a ton of stories and an appreciation for the female anatomy that surprised Tony, because Michael hadn't been that girl-crazy through high school. So when Michael and Tony came home on the same weekend, inevitably, Michael had set them up on a double-blind date.

Arriving at the fraternity house, he found his college best friend and frat brother Doug waiting for him in their shared room.

"Have I got a girl for you," Doug said. "She's gorgeous. 36-26-34 ... stacked ... blond .. And she's majoring in biological sciences, so she's brainy too."

"Have you forgotten? We graduate in two weeks. Next week are finals. I have to study or I won't pass that last class in geology. If I don't pass, no degree. No degree, and I can't do what I want to do next," Tony stated definitely.

"Yeah, what you want to do next. I can't believe you, Nelson! What do you want to join the military service for? Most guys our age tried going into college to AVOID military service, the draft, man, and the Korean war!" Doug moaned.

"I can't afford to do it any other way. I wanna fly, and the only way I'm gonna learn to fly is through the military. Eisenhower just created that astronauts corps, and I want in. Now, while it's close to the ground floor," Tony informed him. "So I don't really have time to go out with a girl right now."

"Tony, it's only one date. Tonight. I promise you, if you're bored by her, or you want to go home, I'll help you make excuses. I'll even drive."

"Well, you'll have to, since I don't own a car at the moment. All right. You've got a deal. But tomorrow, you leave me strictly alone. That book of mine is calling me to study."

"Deal, Nelson."

Tony went out with Doug, his girlfriend Tina, and the blond gal named Sophie. Doug was right, Sophie was a knockout. Doug and Tina dropped Tony and Sophie off at Sophie's apartment, where she gave him a little sex-education - right down to lace underwear. But still it left a bad feeling for him. It just wasn't right. Sophie was not the right girl. Someday he would find the right girl, and it would mean something for him.

In the end, Tony passed all of his senior second semester finals with "As", which surprised him. While still studying for those grueling exams, he visited every military officer recruiting station in Columbus, and talked to a lot of people in Washington, DC, on the telephone. Though all the services made him great offers, based on his high achievement and his scientific background, the best offer was the Air Force.

The Air Force offered him the highest starting rank of all, Captain, and the shortest time in Officer Training. More importantly, they offered him flight school pending a successful physical, which would take place two days after his college graduation ceremony. He tried the title on for size: Captain Anthony Nelson. It sounded good, so that's the way he was going to go.

Tony's mother, father, and sister Tracy, who was 16 years old and a beautiful teenager, came to OSU for the graduation ceremony. It would take place on a Saturday morning on the practice football field, with only the College of Mathematics and Physical Sciences graduates there. He found himself sitting in the Summa Cum Laude section when he thought that one grade in Calculus was going to put him just down in Cum Laude, so he was happy. Sitting on the field in cap and gown, he looked up and saw his family trying to find him. Tracy was easy to spot. Dark brown hair, looking a little like him, but one of the younger people in the audience. Doug had seen Tracy and whistled when he first saw her. Tony, the protective big brother, told him to back off, that was jail-bait and he better not forget it.

Three days later, Tony found himself in Officers' Candidate School, learning the in's and out's of being a military officer, Air Force terminology, doing physical exercises twice a day for a half hour and a morning jog around the track every day, and taking classes again in mathematics, sciences, and written English. Some of the other men were attending classes in foreign languages, but Tony did not learn languages easily. Instead, he was sent to classes in aircraft history and engineering. He wondered if he'd made a mistake, not taking any engineering classes in college.

While there, he had liberty once a week and managed to go out with a different female officer candidate each time. There weren't that many women officer candidates to choose from, as this was 1961 and most girls were finding careers elsewhere. The ones that were there could compete with Tony intellectually and he found them challenging to talk to. His OCS roommate, Frank, managed to bed some of them down, but Tony wasn't interested in trying. He spent time talking to one girl, Thalia, about the merits of flying F-5's vs. some of the older aircraft. Frank thought he was nuts. When Tony thought about it, maybe he WAS nuts. Thalia wanted to go to Flight School, but females weren't being accepted yet. Maybe someday, she hoped.

Flight school was everything Tony wanted it to be, and then some. The only thing he couldn't stand was the barracks that he had to live in. Throughout college and OCS, he had roomed with only one or two other people, and that was enough. To share the same room and a group bathroom with 11 other men was going to drive him nuts. Fortunately flight school was only a few weeks. If he passed it successfully, he wanted to apply to Top Gun. Top Gun was the top military flight school for advanced pilots. Only the best pilots got in. If he could get into Top Gun, it would almost assure the next step: a successful application to the astronaut training program.

Tony passed Flight School and was recommended for Top Gun. He was sent to San Diego for training and hardly saw anything of San Diego. For all practical purposes, Tony felt that when he left San Diego, he'd never been there. The only thing he saw of San Diego was the inside of classrooms at Naval Air Station Miramar, another barracks, the tarmac, the inside of various aircraft, and occasionally the galley. It seemed strange to be eating with men in Navy blue uniforms instead of the lighter blue of the U.S. Air Force, but occasionally he'd see an Air Force uniform, and even a green U.S. Army uniform.

It was at Top Gun where Tony met a man who would have substantial influence on the rest of his Air Force career, though he wouldn't know it yet. Attending Top Gun school as a candidate from the US Army Air Corps, Corps of Engineers, was one Captain Roger Healey. The two men, opposites as they could be, became friends the second day of Top Gun school.

**CHAPTER 2 - ROGER** - **THE COLLEGE YEARS**

Walking down the street in Greenwich towards the tiny brownstone that he shared with five other college guys, Roger Healey debated his future. He'd spent five years at Columbia University. At first he tried pre-law, but found that subject to be so dry. His physical science class, required for graduation by all Columbia students, interested him so much that the professor suggested he take another science class the following semester. By the end of his freshman year, Roger decided to major in Engineering and was taking everything he could possibly take in the math and sciences department. He tried to avoid the English and language classes - he was slightly dyslexic and all those words bugged him. He enjoyed speech class, however, because he found himself peppering all of his speeches with jokes and one-liners. His reputation as the class clown in grammar and high school had not preceded him here, but he made a new reputation. Whenever someone needed a laugh or to feel perkier, they went to see Roger Healey. And that included women by the score.

Despite his grueling academic schedule, Roger managed to date a different girl at least four times a week. Most invited him over to their little apartments and flats for dinner, which he appreciated since he didn't have to find the cash to take them out to dinner. He was attending Columbia on a full-ride scholarship and didn't have a lot of extra cash. Sometimes the dinner ended with a visit to the girl's bedroom, but sometimes it didn't.

Roger's dad, Michael, had died when he was in junior high school, a trucking accident on the highway. His father was a long-distance trucker and the truck had gone over the side when he fell asleep trying to drive too long. Roger's mother tried her best to give her one and only son an education, but mostly it was up to Roger. He almost gave up in his senior year of high school and married a hometown girl instead, but when the Columbia scholarship came through, he couldn't give up on his one dream of flying a plane. The Draft was also rearing down his neck, and while the military wasn't a bad idea, he didn't think much of the Korean War. So college was a good choice.

Seeing the picture of his dad's truck after the accident, Roger decided that the only way he really wanted to travel was in the air. Planes and jets were becoming popular ways of vacation travel. He couldn't decide if he wanted to be a commercial plane pilot, or join the military. Then the call came. He saw President Eisenhower on the television in his brownstone, talking about the astronaut corps and how it would be expanding in the next few years to accommodate all the exploration of space that the Americans wanted to do. It suddenly hit him right then what he wanted to do. He wanted to fly in the military, because that would be The Ticket to the astronaut corps.

Did he have the grades to do it? That, he wasn't sure of. He managed to keep his grade average to keep the scholarship going every year, but he wasn't sure if those grades would "make the grade" for the astronaut corps, or even flight school before that. Suddenly he spent a little more time studying, and a tad less time with girls, trying to get his grade average up. If only he could improve his grades in the required English courses that he had to take!

In the end, he found a little blond number who was willing to help him with his English class homework. She was an elementary education major who had just taken a class in learning disabilities, and taught him some strategies to help him over the dyslexia that had driven him crazy all the way through grammar and high school. He was so grateful to that little gal, Janice. She was so grateful to him for giving her practice, that she gave him her virginity - and he almost thought he was going to become a father when she brought to him a little problem two months later. Fortunately, it turned out that she wasn't pregnant. He was relieved - fatherhood was not the key to the astronaut corps that he needed at this point.

Just before graduating, he visited the officer recruiting offices located on the campus of Columbia University. He talked to the Air Force, who weren't really thrilled about his grades. Then to the Navy, who would have put him on an aircraft carrier the next week, headed for the shores off Korea, as a peacekeeping gesture. The last ones he talked to were the Army people, who took one look at his engineering background and referred him to the Army Corps of Engineers. They, in turn, told him that they not only had room for him in their program, but they would give him the rank of Captain, immediately salaried, officer training school, and flight school. If he passed flight school with a certain grade, he could be admitted to Top Gun. That would possibly get him into the astronaut corps, despite his less than perfect grades in college.

Since his mother was unable to come to New York City for the graduation ceremony, which was pretty big anyway, Roger decided to skip it. He picked up his degree at the Records Office the next morning, instead. His graduation evening was spent in the company of one bosomy redhead named Candy. She was experienced and all over Roger - but there wasn't a brain in her head. He shrugged, brains weren't what he was after at the moment, anyway.

Two days after graduation, on a Monday morning, he found himself at the Armed Forces Center in New York City, getting the most thorough physical he'd ever had in his life. He trekked down hallways wearing only his boxer shorts, getting poked and prodded in every area of his body. Then going in chambers smaller than an outhouse, with earphones on trying to hear sounds that must only be heard by dogs. Then standing in huge rooms trying to read eye charts 50 feet away. The toughest part of that one was that darned chart with the E's turned in various directions. He quietly explained to the doctor that he was dyslexic, the doctor wrote it on his chart and then gave him a letter and number chart instead. The only tough part of that were b's and d's, but Janice's techniques had helped him there. The doctor didn't think his dyslexia would keep him out of officer training or flight school, so he was relieved. When he went back to the brownstone the next night, he had papers and a bus ticket to Officer Candidate School, to leave in a week.

He had one week to sell what little furniture he had, send some stuff home to his mother in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and see all the girls that he wanted to say goodbye to. When he left for OCS, he had a black book with 100 names and phone numbers all over the country. No matter where he'd get stationed, he'd have a girl somewhere nearby. And he planned to add to that little book as he went.

At OCS he had no time to breathe. He was either in class, in the gym or on the physical fitness blacktop, eating, sleeping, or studying. There were a few evenings of liberty, but not knowing any girls, he went to the local bars and headed for the pick-ups. Roger wasn't much on paying for female entertainment, and by the second liberty evening, he had found out where the singles bars were and headed for those. Each of the successive five liberty evenings were spent with a girl picked up in one of those bars. He scored twice, and struck out the rest of the time.

Roger's buddy at OCS was another engineer named Rich. Roger was quite surprised that they got along as well as they did, as they were the exact opposites. Rich was one of those straight A students, girls were friends and maybe a date or two but not for bedding down until later in the relationship, and was aiming for a career as a Construction Engineer. Rich hoped to be working on some of the Army Corps of Engineer projects along the Tennessee Valley Authority, the area of his hometown. He thought flight was something for birds, not people. But yet, Roger could really talk to Rich, and he would listen - and Rich would talk, while Roger listened. Roger learned a lot from Rich. The best thing they did together, though, was study. Rich had strategies for remembering formulas and facts that he shared with Roger - extending the knowledge that Janice had helped him with.

Flight school was next on the schedule, and Roger's grades in OCS were good enough to get him in. It was everything he'd hoped it would be and then some. The classes weren't exactly his favorite part, but again, he found a study buddy similar to Rich who helped him remember things. Roger was a learn-by-doing person, and the more he could put into practice in simulators and in the air what he'd learned in the classroom, the better he was. The instructor took him aside after a couple of weeks and asked him about his dyslexia. "It doesn't even show!" That remark kept Roger going through the rest of flight school and he knew he would remember it into Top Gun, if he could get recommended for that.

On the final day of Flight School, Captain Healey was required to fly solo and perform basic maneuvers and three intermediate maneuvers. He performed all perfectly, so his instructors asked him if there were any advanced maneuvers he wanted to attempt. He told them exactly what he wanted and was prepared to do, and they gave him permission. Rolling the plane completely 360 degrees once, and then rolling it the opposite direction 360 degrees almost immediately following, the instructors were impressed. They gave him the orders to Top Gun in San Diego, Naval Air Station Miramar.

That night he spent the night tying one on at a singles bar in town in celebration. He met a girl named Terri, and followed her home. She fed him dinner, dessert, and for a final dessert ... took him to her bedroom. It was a wonderful night of celebration.

Roger regretted the late night when the flight instructors rousted him out of bed at 4:00 a.m. and said his flight to San Diego was in 2 hours. He had a pounding hangover, but he couldn't let the flight instructor know it. He dragged himself down to the Terminal with his flight bag full of uniforms and jumpsuits, and got on that plane bound for NAS Miramar.

At Top Gun, he was in a barracks with eleven other men - the entire class at Top Gun. There were six Navy uniforms, four Air Force, one regular Army Air Corps, and Roger, Army Corps of Engineers. Every single one of them had been top man in flight school, but their flight schools had been all over the map and at various times. Most of the men talked about wanting to be ace pilots for their respective services, but only two others had the same aspirations that he had. One was Tony Nelson, and the other, Pete Conway. Both had, like him, obtained the application for the astronaut corps, and were fighting for the designation of top pilot at Top Gun. Other than those qualities, though, the three were as different as night, day, and moonlight.

**CHAPTER 3 - JEANNIE - BEFORE THE BOTTLE**

Jeannie, who was then known as Fawzia al Babilonia, was a teenaged girl enjoying a free and easy lifestyle. She could have anything she wanted. Her mother, Fatima, and her father, Fazi, were both djinn. Normally, the offspring of two djinn was a djinn, but at birth, Fawzia showed no signs of being a djinni. Her older brother, Demir, and her younger brother, Bemir, were both djinn. Her sisters, Fashka and Kashmir, were both djinni. Fawzia appeared to be the black-sheep of the family, or perhaps just a late bloomer. The rest of the offspring all developed powers before they were two years old, by human standards.

Physically, though, Fawzia was anything but a late bloomer. A blond from birth, she had a womanly figure by the age of 13 and attracted the attention of every djinn in old Babylon. If mother Fatima had allowed her to date, Fawzia could have had a different date every night. But her mother and father were very conservative, and every man that wanted to take out Fawzia al Babilonia, had to pass inspection that included one hour of conversation alone with her parents. At that rate, the teenaged Fawzia thought, she'd be lucky to get married by age 40. Because very few of the men passed inspection.

When the Blue Djinn of Teheran came calling on her parents, to ask them for permission to date their daughter, Fawzia thought that her parents were going to do everything including worship the man. It was obvious to Fawzia exactly how much her parents liked this man, who was at least 30 years older than her, in human terms, and not particularly good looking. She knew, however, that he was a djinn, and a very powerful one at that. Her parents insisted that Fawzia go out with him, so she had no choice.

Blue Djinn took her to some of the hottest night spots in Babilonia, and then spirited her off to his home city of Teheran to do some of the hot night spots there. By the end of the evening, Fawzia had had enough. He was uncouth and was the exact opposite of the polite, conservative man that he had displayed for her parents. He kept her going until she was exhausted, and then his hands began to explore portions of her that she knew should be off limits to any man - or djinn - before marriage. Fawzia insisted that the Blue Djinn take her home, and he surprised her by doing just that.

Two nights later, however, he was back at her parents' doorstep, with plans to take Fawzia to the Djinn Ball. The Blue Djinn had not told her of his plans, so she was not dressed properly. Her mother took pity on her and blinked her into the proper dress for the Ball, which they were also planning to attend. While at the Ball, Fawzia stuck close by her parents, and her mother asked her why.

"The Blue Djinn does not interest me, Mama. He is uncouth, not a gentleman at all. I would prefer your company or that of my own self, to that of the Blue Djinn," Fawzia stated, uncomfortably since the Blue Djinn was staring at her from afar.

"I believe he is going to ask you to marry him," Mama stated. "I think you would do yourself a favor by accepting his proposal."

"That, Mama," Fawzia growled, "would be the worst mistake of my life."

"Daughter, I think turning down his proposal may be the worst mistake of your life," Mama warned.

This was in 50 B.C., a time of struggle within the Persian community of Babylon. At 14, Fawzia was aware of the struggles, but she was about to have a struggle of her own.

Three nights after the Djinn Ball, the Blue Djinn came calling upon Fawzia al Babilonia. Dressed in his finest djinn attire, showing off his smooth, sinewy human form, he first asked to speak with Fatima and Fazi al Babilonia in private. Fawzia and her two sisters were sent up to their rooms during this private discussion.

Fashka had her own take on the conversation, and what Fawzia should do about it. Being a little older than Fawzia, but almost identical to her in form except for hair color (brown vs. Fawzia's blond locks), she had already had three proposals. She was engaged to one of three, an older djinn named Ahmed. Her wedding was three weeks hence, and she was excited about it. She felt that Fawzia should accept the proposal of the Blue Djinn, as "he has money and power - so MUCH power, dah-ling, that you can have ANY-thing you want."

Kashmir tended to agree with Fawzia: the Blue Djinn was bad news and to be avoided at all costs. Kashmir was several years younger, and not ready to date yet, but said that the last type of djinn she would be interested in would be the Blue Djinn type.

Fawzia was called downstairs, but before she went, her mother blinked her into one of her best harem outfits. Fatima thought that if Fawzia at least looked like a djinni, it might make the goods more pleasing to the Blue Djinn. Fawzia would have preferred an old pair of Persian military fatigues - anything to make her less desirable to the Blue Djinn.

Going downstairs in this harem outfit, Fawzia laid eyes on the Blue Djinn in his best djinn outfit. It was all she could do not to turn from him in disgust. She loathed this djinn and said to herself, "If I had any powers right now, I would like to blink him away!" She blinked, but nothing happened. She tried rephrasing it, "I WISH he would go away!" But still, nothing happened. The Blue Djinn stayed at the doorway and she was obliged to go out with him.

The Blue Djinn took Fawzia for a walk on the beach. The beach happened to be one of Fawzia's favorite places in the entire world, even if it was just a river that ran through town. She tried to think of a favorite trip to the beach along the Persian Gulf, a few months before, that her family had taken. It took the sting off of the company she had to keep.

Once at the beach, the Blue Djinn took her into his big arms - he was about a foot and a half taller than she, and much bigger around. When he hugged her, it scared her. It scared her even more when he kissed her. She had never been kissed by a man before, other than her father, and this was definitely not a fatherly kiss. This big ugly man was trying to do things to her that she could not stand. She tried fighting him off, but the Blue Djinn got angry.

"Your father and mother and I have come to an agreement. You shall become my wife in two moons hence. That shall give you time to prepare and to move your possessions into my castle on the hill," the Blue Djinn stated.

"I am not ready to get married to anyone, Sir, Blue Djinn. I am still very young and have yet to see anything of the world that I wish to see," Fawzia replied.

"I did not ask you if you wished to become my wife. I have told you that you will, and your parents have agreed to the terms," the Blue Djinn restated his request.

"And I am telling you, no, thank you. I am just a young girl, not wise to ways of the world, and I wish to meet many different men before settling with any one man," Fawzia repeated her negative reply.

"You dare to tell the most powerful of the djinn that you will not marry him?"

"I dare. I wish love, and affection, with someone who is prepared to respect and honor me for the rest of his life. With you, I will be just a possession - something to own," Fawzia said.

The Blue Djinn was angry. Looking along the beach in the sand, he picked up a stick and threatened Fawzia with it.

"Why are you not a djinni?" the Blue Djinn questioned.

"How should I know? My parents are both djinn. For some reason, I have not shown the powers of a djinni at this time. Perhaps you, with your great powers, can light upon the reason for my ... humanity," Fawzia suggested.

"Your entire family are djinn. You are the black sheep!"

"Ah, you guessed, powerful one. I am also the one who wishes to see something of the world before I settle down - unlike my older sister and my two brothers," Fawzia commented. "None of those three care why they marry. But the man I marry, I must love wholeheartedly and want to be his wife forever."

"And you do not feel that way about me?"

"No, powerful one. I wish to be ... I wish to be out of your presence right now."

"So BE it!" The Blue Djinn picked up a beautiful bottle that he had just found on the beach. It was black, with gold filigree leaves all over it, and an elegant stopper. "YOU! Inside this bottle, please!"

"Now, how am I supposed to get in there! Perhaps the rest of my family can smoke in and out of places, including bottles, but I am not capable unless someone helps me."

The Blue Djinn folded his arms, muttered some very long syllables in a combination of Persian and Arabic, and a jolting feeling appeared within Fawzia. "How do you feel now, Fawzia al Babilonia? Do you feel like marrying me yet?"

"A little woozy, sir. But I still do not feel like marrying anyone right now."

"Then...smoke yourself into that bottle. You now have the capability, for I have released the djinn powers that have been within you, sequestered, until now."

"Thou hast given me powers? That is not possible!" Fawzia was speaking more formally now, feeling almost dizzy.

"Think, SMOKE. Then squeeze your djinni form into that bottle." Being slightly dizzy and feeling more compliant, and not knowing what the Blue Djinn was up to, Fawzia folded her arms, blinked, thought SMOKE, and suddenly began to smoke herself into the black and gold filigreed bottle that the Djinn had produced. "A- HA! I have got you NOW!" He said as he placed the cork on the bottle, completely trapping Fawzia al Babilonia. "You are now my captive. I will take you to a deserted island someplace, and drop you off. Perhaps some day, thousands of years from now, someone will rescue you. You have the full powers of a djinni, but because you are trapped, you are unable to use them out of the bottle until you are released. You will become the slave girl of the one that releases you, and you will serve him or her until death."

Fatima and Fazi al Babilonia, and their children Fashka, Kashmir, Demir and Bemir, did not know what had become of Fawzia. They searched and searched, and when Fazi questioned the Blue Djinn, the Blue Djinn did not give the whole truth. He only said that their daughter Fawzia had turned down his proposal and then had run away in fear. In reality, the Blue Djinn had taken the bottle to a remote island in the South Pacific, placed it in the upper section of the island where it wouldn't wash out to sea in a storm, and left it there. And it remained there for another 2000 years ... til 1965.

**CHAPTER 4 - TONY - TOP GUN FIGHTER PILOT SCHOOL**

Captain Roger Healey couldn't be more the opposite of himself, Tony thought about his new friend and bunkmate. Though both were from small towns not far from each other but in different states, they had totally different outlooks on life, happiness and the pursuit thereof, and women. Tony thought he could teach Roger a few things about respect for women, and also knew that Roger relied on him for some of the written work required in class. Tony didn't understand the latter until Roger explained that he had learned a few techniques for coping with dyslexia, but still relied on others to teach him orally what he needed to know. Tony did understand that, underneath that rough and comic exterior, Roger was a brilliant scientist and top-notch pilot.

No doubt about it, there was more studying required at Top Gun. They learned more about aircraft engineering than they'd learned at initial flight school, making Tony wish again that he'd taken another engineering class in college. Roger saved the day there, explaining things to Tony that he didn't have a chance in Hades to understand from the flight instructors at Top Gun. In exchange, Tony took a tape recorder and read some of the reading material required for class, into it, so Roger could study. The tape was heard going at all hours of the night in the barracks. Some of the guys complained and others said it was helpful since it helped them remember what they'd read and would be tested on the next day.

There wasn't much opportunity at Top Gun to get out and go anywhere. Tony felt that he never really saw San Diego. Years later, when someone would ask him if he'd ever been to San Diego, he would reply, "never". All he saw of it was the classrooms at NAS Miramar, the inside of simulators, the inside of aircraft, galleys, barracks, and the study rooms. Occasionally he would see Roger go out, having commented that he was tired of studying and needed to see something besides walls and books. However, Tony wanted that "TOP GUN at Top Gun" designation so that he'd have the best chance at Astronaut Corps. Drill, drill, drill. Yes, it was boring, but the destination was there. Doris Day had a song on the radio that said, "Dream..." and that's what kept him going.

One evening, though, Tony had an unusual dream. His dream must have been verbal, for it woke Roger in the bunk next to him. In the dream, a beautiful blond girl was trapped, and kept hollering, "Let me OUT of here! Let me OUT of here!" He couldn't see where she was trapped, or what she was wearing, but only that it was unusual attire. His own response was, "I'll get you! I'll get you!" which was what woke Roger. When Tony awoke, the part of the dream that he remembered the most was the beauty and wholesomeness of the girl in the dream. He told Roger, "if I ever found a girl like that, I'd marry her in a heartbeat." Roger's reaction was, "You? Old two-feet on the ground Nelson? Get married? Never! I'll bet I'm married before you are!"

A number of weeks later, Tony graduated with 8 other members of his Top Gun class. Three had washed out, declaring themselves just regular pilots, not fighter pilots. The rest were given honors - Tony, the highest Honor, that of TOP GUN at Top Gun. Now, to wait for a reply from NASA and the Astronaut Corps. In the meantime, he was being shipped out to Edwards Air Force Base, to another school for pilots. He was on his way to the Astronaut Corps, as far as he was concerned.


	2. Chatpers 5 13

**CHAPTER 5 - ROGER - TOP GUN** **FIGHTER PILOT SCHOOL**

Grueling study, time in simulators, actual flight time in some of the best aircraft that the military had to date, and more physical fitness - that spelled time at Top Gun school to Roger Healey. He was grateful for the opportunity, but he was also grateful to his new friend Captain Tony Nelson. Tony was so stuffy in comparison, that he didn't know why or how they got along so well. However, Tony was such a good listener, and a really good study buddy. He was understanding about Roger's problems with written work and took extra time to tape record the lessons for him. It was just plain hard not to like Tony, and perhaps Roger could teach Tony to lighten up a little on his approach to women. Besides ... Tony always laughed at Roger's jokes, even if they weren't particularly funny.

Roger also knew he was a top notch engineer, and understood a lot about aircraft engineering that makes you a better pilot. Tony didn't seem to understand some of it, so Roger took the time to explain it all to him in layman's terms instead of the textbook heebi-jeebi language that they were expected to learn from.

Roger also knew that the more time he spent in simulators and in an actual jet, the better pilot he would become. As in flight school, hands-on training suited him best. He had done that advanced move to pass out of flight school, and he was planning to do all of the advanced moves before he left Top Gun, including some that were not required. He figured if he couldn't get into the Astronaut Corps, then maybe the Blue Angels would take him, even if he had to switch services to do that. Flying was important. Going into space was even more important. What military service you did it from wasn't in the least bit important, they all got paid the same anyway.

On a couple of occasions, Roger was starting to burn out of studying and simulators, so he took himself over to the base officers' club. He was recognized there as a Top Gun student, due to the little sticker on his military identification card, so he couldn't drink. Going off base wasn't an option for Top Gun students, either, unless they lived in the San Diego area. Roger looked around and thought that he wouldn't even have known he was in San Diego, he was spending so much time inside buildings, simulators and aircraft. However, at the officers' club, he could mingle with females. There weren't too many in there, most of them being with spouses or parents. He wasn't into robbing the cradle, not yet anyway. Getting nailed for statutory rape wasn't his style, and would definitely interfere with his chances of getting into the astronaut corps. So for now, he would have to settle just for admiring and talking to pretty girls. Being young and good-looking himself, there was no problem talking to some of the younger ones. By the time he got out of Top Gun, though, he was going to be frustrated - and looking for action.

Right before graduation, though, he was awoken by his new friend Tony, who had a loud dream that woke up some of the other pilots. Suddenly yelling, "I'll get you! I'll get you!" at 2 in the morning would wake up most people. Tony didn't wake up til Roger poked him. Tony told him about the dream, something about a blond girl who was trapped somewhere. The next morning, the two of them tried to figure out that dream, but only came up with the possibility that maybe, just maybe, Tony was starting to wake up to women. Well, at least his friend wasn't a homosexual, Roger thought. Any man who described the woman in his dream that explicitly HAD to be a straight guy!

Roger performed his graduation maneuvers perfectly and awarded the Top Pilot Award. His friend Tony got the Top Gun award, which he deserved since he was an equally good pilot but much better at all the book work they had to do. Roger knew that the Top Pilot Award would be a way to get him into the Astronaut Corps. But he had to await the decision from NASA first, and while he was doing that, he was shipped out to Andrews Air Force Base on the East Coast. He and Tony exchanged post addresses before they left, along with Pete Conway who graduated fifth in class, and promised to get in touch if any of them made the Astronaut Corps.

**CHAPTER 6 - JEANNIE - IN THE BOTTLE, THE FIRST FEW HUNDRED YEARS**

Fawzia al Babilonia was literally stuck between a rock and a hard place. Her bottle was on the upper realms of a deserted island, tucked between two rocks, completely surrounded by water. She could hear the waves off in the distance, and occasionally, the sounds of thunder, wind, and rain as storms would pass by the island.

The inside of the bottle was musty and dank, and just plain dull. In the first few days, she played with her new found powers, and was able to decorate the inside of the bottle to make it more pleasant. After all, who knew how long she would have to live in that bottle? It could be as little as a few days, or as much as a few hundred years. That mean Blue Djinn had suggested a few thousand years. Knowing that djinn could live forever, hundreds or thousands of years seemed like a very long time to spend in one tiny, cramped little space. Fawzia thought, she may as well make the best of it.

Within a few months, she found within her powers two things that would make the imprisonment more pleasant. The Blue Djinn had placed a book about spells within the bottle. That was surprisingly thoughtful of him, for someone so mean, she thought. With a few blinks, she could put herself in an ethereal state. Perhaps to humans it could be described as like a coma, where the body was asleep and not aging at all. Also, she discovered that though her body was imprisoned in the bottle, her spirit could escape for short periods of time. She merely made herself go into a spell. This spell would bring herself into something similar to what humans describe as an "out of body" experience, often happening right after physical death. Only, Fawzia was not dead. This spell allowed her to go out of the bottle and see what was happening in the world.

These spells did not allow her enough time to completely keep up with the world and its constant changing technology. However, she was able to visit places, see people that were prominent in each era, and see basic changes in the world. Being a djinn spirit, she could not actually meet anyone until her djinn body was released from the bottle. The spirit could visit - thus, the old saying, "the spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak," could be applied in Fawzia's case.

Within the bottle during non-spell time, Fawzia began to think about the one who would release her. By djinn law it was supposed to be a human. It could be male or female, and more than anything, Fawzia wished for a male. She had him all worked out in her mind - young, good looking, pliable, understanding of djinn, virile, respectful of women, loving, kind ... the list went on. Perhaps it was a list that the parents of any young woman would make for their daughter of the qualities in a mate, not just a master of a djinn.

A master - Fawzia had to contemplate that. She was going to be a slave girl to a human master. After picturing this human master in her mind - male, of course - she had to stop and think about what he would require of her. She knew what it was that most djinn did - they attempted to make their masters rich beyond belief. Some djinnis, with their male masters, became harem girls, providing them with physical pleasures. The possibility of that was disheartening to Fawzia. Whether she could do that and enjoy it, would depend a lot upon the male master. She knew that she was not required to enjoy it, and that was part of the problem.

While her djinni spirit was out of the bottle one day, she took a good look at the island where her bottle was imprisoned. The spirit could not move the bottle off the island, only able to roll it a little. There were no trees on this island, no signs of any humanity. There were wild plants, some of which could be edible if someone landed here by mistake and could recognize them. But mostly, there were rocks - sand - shells - a lovely beach, which Fawzia loved - and plenty of surf. Fawzia's spirit was also enjoying the fresh air. That wasn't a requirement for a spirit, but it was the memory of something to take back to the flesh within the bottle.

The spirit, while out on another romp another day, decided to try some spells to bring a rescuer in. Fawzia found that this was impossible. Though her spirit could move around for short periods of time outside of the bottle, they could not perform most other feats of djinn power. So she knew ... she was stuck until a human would come along and rescue her.

Fatima and Fazi al Babilonia had taught their five children the power of prayer. So when Fawzia returned her spirit to the bottle, she decided to try praying. "Allah, please bring me a human male master ..." and the list of the qualities of that human master took a long time. Little did Fawzia know that there were few males in the world who could meet all of those qualities AND find their way to a small deserted island in the South Pacific.

**CHAPTER 7 - TONY - EDWARDS AND CARSWELL AIR FORCE BASES**

Captain Tony Nelson had orders to Edwards Air Force Base in California for three months of training, followed by three months of duty at Carswell Air Force Base near Fort Worth, Texas.

His orders of business at Edwards were some short courses in aircraft maintenance. Edwards, located in the higher desert region north of the San Bernardino Mountains near Victorville, was well known for large and long airfields and plenty of space for maintenance hangars. Thus, there were several courses and workshops that Tony had been signed up to attend by his flight instructors at Top Gun.

The barracks there was more to his liking. Officers, Captain and above, were placed in single rooms, three single rooms to one bathroom. Fortunately, the bathroom had two sinks. The two other men sharing the suite with him were also attending aircraft maintenance schools, as aircraft carrier pilots. Tony learned a lot about real military flight from these two.

One man was a lot like Roger Healey, trying to get Tony to go out at night. One night, he relented and the three of them went down to Victorville to one of the bars there. All three found a woman to talk to for the evening, returning to the suite pristine and having talked of things besides jet engines and oil changes.

When he had completed his three months of workshops and classes, Tony was sent to be in charge of one of the maintenance hangars at Carswell in Texas. As a new officer, he hadn't had much leadership experience, but he took the challenge in stride. Rather than being a dictatorial boss, he took his enlisted men aside, talked to them, gained their insights and opinions - and then made his decisions. His enlisted men respected him for his pliant attitude. "Captain Nelson sure doesn't boss us around - he respects what we know." At the same time, they learned what he would tolerate and what he would not.

While at Carswell, Tony met a girl named Diane Rodnick. Her family had known his family, back in Ohio, and she was living in Fort Worth now with her family. He took her out once, enjoyed it thoroughly, and for the rest of his stay there, he and Diane had a great time together. It wasn't serious for either of them, so when it was time to move on, they said goodbye with no regrets.

Finally, two months into his stay at Carswell Air Force Base, Captain Anthony Nelson received a letter. In it were orders to the Astronaut Training Center at the Houston Space Center in Texas, two months hence. The orders explained that his training would take place at Houston, Huntsville, Alabama, Cocoa Beach, Florida, Edwards AFB, and Andrews AFB near Washington, DC, and it would be a six-month training program. A small brochure, which Tony had already devoured before he applied to the Astronaut Corps, further explained Astronaut Training.

He went back to his office at the hangar with both Roger's and Pete's phone numbers in hand. Dialing the long string of autovon numbers, the military phone system, Roger's phone rang several times. Finally someone picked up - he realized the time difference. Fortunately, it was Roger.

"Hey, buddy. It's Tony. I got my orders to Astronaut Training. How about you?"

"I just got mine, too, Tony. Two months from now. And what's more, I heard from Pete about ten minutes ago. He was in Washington State, at Bremerton. He got his orders. Six months of training, starting in two months."

The whoops of joy could be heard all over the states of Texas, Washington, and Virginia.

**CHAPTER 8 - ROGER - ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE**

Roger Healey began to wonder if his chosen military service, Army, was a good idea. He was spending a lot more time on other service bases - his flight school had been Air Force, Top Gun was Navy, and now he was shipped to another Air Force base. He began to see the wisdom of it as he arrived at Andrews. Top Gun flight instructors sent him to more aircraft engineering schools and courses, and they were not located on Army bases. Most of them were on Air Force and Navy bases. His green dress uniform, green fatigues, and green jump-suits were not popular colors on this light-blue base. But the information was the same.

Still on his toes waiting for the decision from the Astronaut Corps, Roger was on his best behavior. Oh, he still cut up in class a little, creating humor wherever it was appropriate and occasionally where it wasn't. His instructors understood and some of them actually appreciated the humor in what otherwise could have been a dull subject. He wasn't able to find anyone like Tony or Rich at this set of schools, though, who could help him through the book work. Going to one of his more understanding and less staunch instructors for help, he had to explain his problem - something he hated.

That had a surprise twist. It seems that the instructor he went to see was married to a local teacher with experience in dealing with the dyslexic student. Roger found himself at the instructor's home three nights one week, studying. They in turn introduced him to a gorgeous red-head named Dayna, another teacher, who was single. Roger dated her not just once, but for four months. Dayna took over with the reading of the classroom material, where the instructor's wife left off. Read - kiss - read some more - kiss - this was fun, Roger thought. The funny thing was, he really learned that material quickly. Even his instructor was impressed.

At the end of the third month of schools at Andrews, Roger was transferred to a hangar, in a similar position to Tony Nelson's. The aircraft were in for scheduled overhauls, and it was Roger's job to coordinate the overhauls to get the aircraft back into service as soon as possible. Roger was definitely uncomfortable with the idea of bossing anyone around, but he had to do it. He knew that he was being watched and that NASA could call his superiors at Andrews for an update on his leadership abilities at any time. This could make or break him, again, as a candidate for Astronaut Training. He knew his job, got it done, and for the most part, the aircraft were ready for service within the parameters given to them as they came in. He used humor to get his men to do what he needed them to do, and they responded to it well. One even suggested that he moonlight as a stand-up comedian sometime. (It wasn't a half bad idea, but he didn't have time for that, at the moment.)

By the end of the fourth month, a letter came for Captain Roger Healey from NASA: his orders to Astronaut Training in Houston, Texas, and three or four other places across the United States, to begin two months hence at the expiration of his orders at Andrews. His superiors at Andrews were thrilled for him, though they knew they were losing a top-notch aircraft engineer.

That evening, he had come back to his office in the hangar to retrieve a folder that he'd accidently left there that afternoon. The phone rang, and though it was not usually his thing to answer a ringing phone after hours, he went ahead and picked it up. It was his friend Pete Conway from Top Gun school, calling from the west coast where it was just at the end of the work day. He shot the breeze with Pete about their dual orders to Astronaut Training, answering Pete's query that, no, he hadn't heard yet from Tony Nelson. The two agreed that they'd find it surprising if Tony wasn't chosen for Astronaut Training.

Roger put the phone down, feeling an uplift that he hadn't felt since meeting Dayna a few months before. He sat down to contemplate the feeling, and his date with Dayna that evening - would she finally go to bed with him? - when the phone rang again. He debated, once again, not answering it, but figuring it might be Pete again, he picked it up. It was Tony, with the same news that Pete and Roger had both gotten that day.

The three of them were gonna be a riot at Astronaut Training.

**CHAPTER 9 - JEANNIE - THE NEXT FEW HUNDRED YEARS**

Fawzia continued her existence within the bottle. She spent more and more time in the ethereal state, not conscious of anything outside of her bottle. Occasionally she would be brought out of the state, and would spell herself outside as a spirit and check out the world. The world off the island was changing drastically. Persia, and its surrounding countries, were constantly at war. Mesopotamia as she knew it no longer existed. Gaul, now called Rome, was finally solidified. New countries were forming in Europe. Her favorite time was the Renaissance. Her spirit was willed from the bottle a lot during that period. She loved the art, the music, and many of the people that lived in that time. She saw that ships were venturing further and further from their home countries, and she prayed once again to Allah that one of the ships might find her island and a sailor, rescue her.

**CHAPTER 10 - TONY AND ROGER - ASTRONAUT TRAINING, HOUSTON**

Arriving at the civilian airport in Houston, Texas, within minutes of each other, Captain Tony Nelson and Captain Roger Healey found each other, and then the shuttle service to the Space Agency. They would be billeted in civilian housing just outside the Space Center and no longer required to wear their individual military service uniforms.

At the Space Center, they were checked in immediately and issued regulation NASA jumpsuits and other paraphanelia required by NASA. A senior astronaut named Gus Grissom became Tony's first-week mentor, and another senior astronaut named Gordon Cooper became Roger's. "Gordo" made one comment after ten minutes with Roger Healey: "Don't ever pair him with Shep. The two of them will drive everyone up the wall with their jokes!" His reference was to Alan Shepard's well-known but wild sense of humor.

Many of their trainers were scientists involved in developing the equipment such as the simulators and the space craft. Others were specialists in survival in all sorts of terrain, physical fitness training, and other aspects of their training which would be second nature to them.

The first order of business after check-in and uniform issue, were a series of medical, vision, hearing, and psychological testing performed by military medical personnel at the local Air Force base. This took the better part of the first week, and washed out three of the initial fifteen astronaut candidates. Two couldn't pass the vision screening. The other had delusions of grandeur and was psychologically dismissed and sent back to the US Navy for further orders. He said he would try for the Navy's Blue Angels precision flying squad.

The pressure was so great in the first week to pass those tests that Tony found himself once again having the same dream that he had back in Top Gun. Again, in his dream, the beautiful blond girl was screaming, "I've got to get OUT of here! Somebody please let me OUT!" This time he got a better look at her. Shapely, and wearing something pink and billowy. He yelled back, "I'll be there, but it may take awhile to get to you!" Roger once again heard him yell, and came to his aid. It was 3 in the morning and they had to be up at 5 for P.F.T. - Physical Fitness Training.

"What's the dream this time, Tony?" Roger woke him up. Tony was sweating furiously, and it wasn't warm in their quarters. "You yelled loud enough to wake Pete next door."

"That girl ... she was trapped again. She was the same girl I dreamed about back in Top Gun. Only I got a better look at her," Tony added.

"Same girl? Tony, I think this is happening when you're under a lot of pressure. Relax."

"Heck, Roger, I don't mind this dream. If all of my dreams could be about that girl ... well, I just wish that she wasn't trapped. I wonder who she is."

"Well, I wish your dreams were less ... loud. Though you could pass any gorgeous female dreams my way ... I'll take 'em!" Roger kidded.

"You leave this one alone. She's young, obviously wholesome, built like - well, built like a man appreciates, and this time I could see she was wearing something pink and filmy. It looked good on her," Tony described. "This is my dream, not yours. Dream your own girls!" He laughed.

"If I were you, Tony, I wouldn't mention these dreams when you're in with that psychiatrist tomorrow. They said he's really tough and tries to wash out anybody based on their delusions."

"This girl is just a dream, Rog'. Not a delusion. Just a dream ... and if she weren't locked up somewhere making me feel sorry for her, it would be a darned pleasant dream."

As it turned out, the two men, plus Pete, passed all of their medical and psychological screening examinations.

Every morning at 5, the men were rousted out of bed and turned out on the "Grinder", as the Navy men all called it, for physical fitness training. Jumping jacks, 4-count and 8-count thrusts, push-ups, sit-ups, toe-touches, and a myriad of other exercises woke them up six days a week. Four days a week, they went around a track four times. By the end of training they were expected to make it 6 times around the track in a specific time allotment. Tony loved the physical fitness. It kept him from getting totally stressed out. Roger tolerated it but was overjoyed if it was canceled for rain. They were allowed one day off, Sunday. Then there were more classes, some of them repeating what they had learned in their college courses in science and mathematics. Classes were five days a week. They were expected to spend their weekend days studying for exams, which were inevitably on Mondays.

The class that Roger Healey hated the most was English. He figured, he'd had two of those classes in college and wasn't that enough? He could write, he just didn't like to. The instructors told them where to find the typewriters, warning them that spacecraft would not be equipped with typewriters so they may as well learn to write their reports in longhand. It still was torture to Roger. As usual, though, Tony assisted him with his class work by giving him tips.

The only things Roger could write well without thinking were love notes. Tony found one of Roger's love notes to Dayna, stashed in his English book, and commented, "If you can write this well to a girl, then pretend that all of your memos are to your favorite girl. Just leave out all the love-y dove-y stuff." After that, memos were much easier. They were just talk, put on paper.

Roger had a running correspondence with Dayna, but that came to a halt three months after arriving at Houston Space Training Center. He had just gotten back from a training in Huntsville, when the mail brought heartbreak to him. Dayna sent him a "Dear Roger" letter, saying she was now dating another teacher and they were thinking of getting married in a year's time. She didn't think that a relationship with a "space jockey" was a good idea any more. They were always gone. With another teacher, she explained, she could have the summer off with her husband and be able to travel. Roger, though heartbroken for a short time, could understand her logic. He sure didn't have time to go back to Washington, DC to visit her anyway. When they went there for training, he wasn't allowed away from the group. Dating during Astronaut Training had, for all intents and purposes, come to a dead halt.

The men were sent in pairs on various survival missions after a vicious survival training class, two months into their training. Tony and Roger were both sent to the prairies of Nebraska, bearing only two canteens of water each, and a 30 pound backpack containing basic survival gear such as tent, sleeping bag and enough food for 2 days. They would be out there a week. Their instructor would always keep an eye on them, from the air, but basically they were on their own. It was during that mission that they cemented their friendship into a full-blown partnership. Tony's seriousness balanced well with Roger's constant urge for humor. Tony could see something good in everything; Roger would use humor to balance it out. Roger's thoughts of reality would scare them both, but Tony's imagination would keep them going.. Tony had learned to hunt when he was a kid, with his dad. Roger had none of that kind of training with his dad, but learned. Roger had a nose for water that Tony didn't have. They were a matched set. Survival training was a major part of their training, and eventually they hit all terrains.

Once again, during this survival mission, Tony had his recurring dream. It seemed that each time he had the dream about the trapped girl, her vision became more clear. It became his ideal girl. "Some day, Roger, I'm going to find this girl. And if she's anything like this dream girl, I'm going to marry her." Roger thought he was nuts, but at least, again, Tony was showing signs of being human...and male.

**CHAPTER 11 - JEANNIE - THE AGE OF EXPLORATION**

Knowing what she did about ships starting to explore the world, Fawzia spelled herself out of the bottle more and more. Rather than visiting cities and communities around the world, she floated over the ocean nearby the island, hoping that she could somehow will one of the ships to make a stop at the island. Unfortunately, her island was miles and miles from the regular shipping lanes, and not too close to any of the lanes chosen by explorers such as Magellan, Columbus, Cartier, or Verrazano.

She tried to levitate her bottle, to move it to an island closer to the shipping and exploration lanes. There was no luck. She moved it about 2 inches. Well, at least it was no longer jammed between two rocks. If someone DID happen to land on her island someday, and she was lucky enough to hear them, she could perhaps roll the bottle towards them. A rolling bottle would probably get someone's attention.

One day she noticed, while out, that her bottle was encrusted with a thick layer of hardened sand. Returning her spirit to her bottle where the spell book was located, she found a spell for cleaning off the bottle which was able to be performed while she was still inside it. She made a mental note to check her bottle each time her spirit went out, to ensure that it would stay fairly clean. A covered or buried bottle would not be able to be found by anyone.

Fawzia continued to think about the man who would someday come to rescue her from her imprisonment. She would be so disappointed if he was not her ideal man, or if it was a woman. She thought it would have to be a man, however, because only men go on ships. Women were not sailors. At the time of her imprisonment, women only went on ships that went down a river, never on an ocean. So it would have to be a man. She kept trying to picture this man, this savior. Oh, please, Allah, let him be everything I have dreamed about, and naught like the Blue Djinn!

**CHAPTER 12 - HAJI, HEAD OF THE DJINN - 400 A.D. **

A man in flowing robes, residing in a castle in what was known then as Babylon, was Haji, the head of all the djinn in the world. A powerful djinn himself, he was made the lead djinn hundreds of years before. He was well-acquainted with the family of Fatima and Fazi al Babilonia. One of his favorites was their daughter, Fawzia.

Haji waited to see what was to become of Fawzia as she grew up, a female offspring of two djinn. Her powers never seemed to come to be. In many ways, she appeared human, and he was still trying to figure out how that happened. Had there been some strange habits for Fatima? Or had they adopted a human, unbeknownst to him? Fatima was called to Haji's castle when Fawzia was 12 years old (by human standards), and questioned. She stated firmly that Fawzia was the natural daughter of herself and Fazi, and that her powers were just late in showing up. Haji was very concerned on the latter. Usually, if powers did not show up by 13, they would never show up. She would be a powerless djinni and would age as a human would.

Then Fawzia disappeared completely. When called upon by Fatima and Fazi, Haji went looking for Fawzia, and employed many of his henchmen to search as well. Djinn were in many places, and bulletins placed in djinn publications were sent all over the world where there was human and djinn habitation.

It took another four hundred years for Haji to find out the truth of Fawzia's disappearance. His first stop, after finding out that the Blue Djinn had trapped her in a bottle and sent her to a deserted island, was at the residence of Fatima and Fazi. Fazi was not at home at the time, but daughter Kashmir was with Fatima when Haji broke the news of their missing family member. Fatima moaned and cried, relieved in one way that they had finally found out what had happened to Fawzia, and crying for her fate. She could only hope that her daughter, Fawzia, when finally released, would find a master that would treat her as well as Fashka's djinn husband was treating her. (She was trying to overlook the fact that Fashka was already on her tenth husband in 400 years. They had all been djinn, but she was a difficult child to get along with, and an even more difficult djinni adult.)

Once the news had been given to the family of the missing djinni, Haji went in search of the Blue the toughest, most powerful djinn in the world, one even more powerful than himself, was not on Haji's list of the most favorite things in his life to do. More fun and favorite would be finding the missing bottle containing Fawzia. So he made the decision to reckon with the Blue Djinn and see what he could find out.

Finding the Blue Djinn was not as difficult as he thought. The Blue Djinn was at home in his castle on the hill in Babylon, surrounded by 7 harem girls. As Haji was allowed in by one of the Blue Djinn's male servants, he couldn't help but look at the harem girls. The Blue Djinn surely picked them pretty, and no doubt about it, Fawzia al Babilonia would have been the prettiest of the lot. To have Fawzia as his head concubine, the Blue Djinn would have been the envy of every male djinn in the middle east.

Tucked in his flowing robes as he entered the Castle of the Blue Djinn was an ornate blue bottle. If the Blue Djinn did not cooperate, Haji was going to have to give him a taste of his own medicine. But he decided to use politeness and tact. Since the Blue Djinn respected Haji's position, it was quite a possibility that he could get the information he needed from the Blue Djinn without resorting to trickery.

"Haji! What brings you to my Castle, Great One?" the Blue Djinn called out from his great room.

"I am looking for information for Fatima and Fazi al Babilonia, sir. I was told by some others that you may have a lead on their missing daughter." Haji respected the power of the Blue Djinn and did not really wish to anger him.

"What information could I have that would possibly be of any use to you, or that particular djinn family?" the Blue Djinn inquired.

"The whereabouts of their daughter, Fawzia. It was reputed that you were once in love with her, sir," Haji replied.

"That I was. But that is in the past tense, Haji. WAS." The Blue Djinn repeated the 400 year old story. "I gained permission from Fatima and Fazi al Babilonia to ask for their daughter's hand in marriage, despite the fact that she was showing no signs of having the power of a djinni as she should have. When I proposed to Fawzia, she turned me down. There was not even a hope of a future wedding day."

"And...?" Haji wanted the rest of the story.

"And so, the young djinni ran away. To where, I do not know. No one has seen her since that time," the Blue Djinn continued the age-old story. "And why do you care, Great One?"

"Her family has meant a great deal to me for many years, sir. They were my neighbors long before I accepted the position as Head of the Djinn. When Fatima gave birth to young Fawzia, I was able to assist the family in ways that were necessary at the time of her birth, in personal matters. She is ... quite a favorite of mine, I must admit," Haji told the great Blue Djinn.

"Yes, I understand as much. That was obvious even before you said so. You wouldn't be so concerned about her."

"I am going to ask you a question, sir, and I would like a truthful answer. We are ... well aware of your great powers and of your temper. Is it a possibility, sir, that you may have bottled up Fawzia al Babilonia and sent her to a deserted place?" Haji asked.

The Blue Djinn stood in his great room, turned his back, and began to pace. It was this motion that told Haji the real truth of Fawzia's disappearance. The Blue Djinn may lie to anyone else, but he cannot and will not lie to the Head of the Djinn.

Haji continued, "It WAS a possibility, was it not?" The Blue Djinn shrugged, unwilling to answer either way. "You do realize what the punishment is for imprisoning a djinni without the express permission of the Head of the Djinn?" The Blue Djinn rolled his eyes, turned and faced Haji and prepared to take magical action.

"STOP!" Haji said. He withdrew the blue, ornate bottle from his robes, uncorked it, and sat it down on a table in the Blue Djinn's great room. "Smoke yourself into that bottle, sir. Now." The Blue Djinn became stubborn and folded his arms, prepared once again for magical action. "Do not even think of that, sir. Go into that bottle, NOW, before I get VERY angry. Two can play those magical games, you know!"

The Blue Djinn decided to cut his losses, figuring he had over 400 years of freedom before he was caught, and with any luck, he'd be out of the bottle in that same amount of time. He only hoped that Haji's spell over the corked bottle wouldn't be the same as the one he'd given to Fawzia. Blue Djinn folded his arms, blinked, thought SMOKE, and his smoky figure melted into the blue bottle, to be immediately corked by Haji.

"The human that releases you must be male, human, with no djinn or djinni of his own. You will become his slave and do his bidding in the way properly befitting a djinn," said Haji, giving the spell. "If released by one who does not completely qualify, you will return to free djinn status." Haji then took the bottle under his robes, and in a shower of smoke, flashed out of the Blue Djinn's Castle, to get rid of the bottle.

The bottle was placed, unbeknownst to Haji, on an island near to where Fawzia's bottle resided. The Blue Djinn's bottle was washed out to sea, and there it floated for the next thousand years, finally resting on the shore of Fawzia's island and getting covered by layers and layers of beach sand.

**CHAPTER 13 - TONY AND ROGER - ASTRONAUT TRAINING**

No doubt about it, Astronaut Training was grueling. Finally after three months of constant study, physical fitness, survival training and outside missions, and simulators, the men were allowed their first liberty. Pete called it "Cinderella Liberty" since they had to be back by midnight. Roger wanted to know if they'd be turned into pumpkins by their fairy godmothers if they were late. Alan Shepard, who had Trainee Watch that night, groaned and told Roger that his orange NASA jumpsuit would remind him of his pumpkin joke for years to come, IF he graduated and was handed that official jumpsuit. Gordo Cooper had already warned Shep about the new trainee.

The trainees were told that they could go anywhere on liberty, including a bar, but if they came home intoxicated, or had a hangover the next morning, there was possibility of dismissal. Both Tony and Roger decided to hit a bar, see if they could each pick up a girl, then take her to a movie. Well, that was Tony's idea. Roger had other ideas, including a girl's apartment. He was a little frustrated by the lack of female companionship for the past three months.

Tony and Roger met two girls at the singles bar recommended by the taxi driver. Tony had an intelligent conversation about recent politics with Rita, and took her to see a movie at a theatre an hour later. He had a great time. He had to tell Rita that he had NO idea if he'd be getting another night off any time soon, but he took her phone number just in case. When Roger found out later that Tony had a girl's phone number, he gave him a spare "little black book" that he'd brought to Houston with him "just in case". Rita was Tony's first entry in that little book. Roger thought that things were still looking up. Tony was just a late developer.

Roger, on the other hand, hooked up right away with a knockout named Debby. She was blond and in some ways, reminded Tony of the girl that he'd dreamed about a few times recently. But the similarities ended with looks. THIS girl was not similar in personality. Debby could hold her own with Roger's jokes. Roger disappeared with Debby after about an hour at the bar. He found out later that Roger had ended up in Debby's apartment. Roger declined to state how far he'd gotten, and Tony really didn't want to know. He'd come to the conclusion a long time ago that Roger had an amazing libido - one he would probably never understand.

Back at NASA, they had to check in with Shep. Anyone not in by 12:15 a.m. (Shep was "cool", he gave them 15 minutes leeway for taxi problems and the like), was reported to the head of the Trainees. No one was late. Even Roger came in at 11:56, four minutes to spare. Tony was in by 11:45. The two men exchanged stories then hit the sack. Exercises at 5:00 a.m. would be even tougher after a Cinderella Liberty.

The men were flown to various locations to work with equipment that was not all located at Houston. Some of their training was done in Huntsville, where they lived in an old run-down motel converted by the military to house trainees. Roger felt at home there, as the town reminded him of New Castle, and much of the training was done on an old Army base. If he'd have been wearing his Army uniform, he'd have been the one in the "right" color and Tony and Pete would feel out of place!

Roger felt even more at home when they trained on some equipment at Andrews. After all, he had spent six months there while waiting to find out if he'd been accepted into the Astronaut Training. He gained permission from some of his trainers to go back to his old hangar, and found some of the guys that remembered him.

"Hey! Guys! It's Captain Healey ... our old friendly comic boss!" one of the enlisted men hollered at the others when Roger came into the hangar. It was good to be remembered as a nice guy and not an old meanie when you were their boss, Roger realized. They shot the breeze for about ten minutes before the Captain that had relieved Roger came to see what was up. The new Captain wasn't upset when he realized who it was, and even asked Roger a few things about how he'd handled things.

Roger also got permission to take Tony and Pete up to meet some of the instructors, particularly the instructor who had befriended him and helped him over his dyslexia hurdle once again. His instructor commented, as the three went to leave, "I predict great things from the three of you. One of these days, I'm going to open my newspaper, and I'm going to see your names as being among our space travelers. Maybe even, as President Kennedy JUST said, some of our first visitors to the moon." Roger replied, "yeah, well, just so I don't find out that the moon IS made of cheese, we'll be fine."

Training at Cocoa Beach was interesting. NASA was discussing putting the training center in ONE location, and that would either be Houston or Cocoa Beach. There was room for growth at either of those locations, where Huntsville and Andrews were both almost out of space. Roger loved Cocoa Beach - the Atlantic Ocean close by, and what's more, Cape Canaveral. While they were training there, NASA sent up several test rockets, unmanned, that the men were taken to watch. Both Tony and Roger reported getting lumps in their throats, watching a launch even from three miles away. Patrick Air Force Base was nearby, there were lots of facilities at Cocoa Beach, so Roger was hoping that NASA would choose Cocoa Beach. That way they wouldn't have to shuttle astronauts by plane between a training center at Houston and their launching pads at Cape Canaveral.

Houston had its points, too. It was close enough to the beach - but it was the Gulf Coast, not the Atlantic. But there were no launchings to watch, and the military base was further away. Since most of the trainees were coming from the military service these days, that could be a problem. NASA was already talking about taking non-military applicants for astronaut trainees, but they still had to be pilots.

The last month of the training was grueling. There were a series of written tests to take, more medical and psychological testing, another three-day survival mission in the deserts of Utah, tests in every simulator available in Houston, and flight tests from the local Air Force base. The latter was probably the easiest for Tony and Roger. Everything they had done in Top Gun made passing the flight and skydiving tests, easy.

Tony had one problem in the psychological testing, and it wasn't until it was over that he realized that it could wash him out even after six months training. The psychiatrist had asked him if he had ever had the same dream more than once, and he had not thought about it before replying,"yes." As a child, he'd been taught not to lie (like every other child of the 1940s and 50s), so it didn't occur to him to say, "no." The psychiatrist wanted to know every detail that he remembered of the dream. So Tony told him of the girl who had been locked up somewhere, trying to get out, that she was a pretty girl, blond, well-built, and obviously of a wholesome background. He also told the psychiatrist that he always wanted to go and save her, but didn't know where she was.

It was Roger who asked him why he had repeated that dream for the psychiatrist. The proper answer, said he, was that no, you've never dreamed the same dream twice and you don't remember too many dreams anyway.

It turned out that neither of them needed to worry - at least, not for now. Tony's dream was seen as symbolic of the stress in his life needing to be released, and that his response that he would try to go and save her, was his own psyche understanding the need to relieve stress. The psychiatrist suggested that Tony get lots of exercise when feeling stress, and perhaps keeping a journal would help too. At least this good doc didn't think he was ready to be washed out as an astronaut, as the doctor recommended him for service.

Of the fifteen men placed in the Astronaut Training Program, six months earlier, seven graduated, including Captain Tony Nelson (USAF), Captain Roger Healey (USA/ACE), and Lieutenant Pete Conway (USNR). In the audience for their graduation were Tony's parents, his sister Tracy, Roger's mother, and Pete's mother. Circumstances beyond their control kept Tony's parents and sister from meeting Roger, but the family did meet Roger's mother. Tony was somewhat relieved - Tracy had just turned 18, was about to graduate from high school and a regional occupational secretarial program at the same time, and he didn't want to tempt Roger by introducing Tracy. Tony knew that Tracy would be just Roger's type, and that bothered him.


	3. Chapters 14 20

**CHAPTER 14 - TONY AND ROGER - AFTER TRAINING**

Tony flew home to Ohio with his parents and sister Tracy, for two weeks leave. He was looking forward to a little "R&R" - Rest and Relaxation. After almost two years of military, flight and astronaut training that had been preceded by four years of grueling college courses, he felt he deserved it.

His mom pampered him for the first three days at home, bringing him breakfast in bed, the newspaper, magazines, whatever he wanted. His dad gave him full use of the car whenever he wanted it. He'd been so used to flying planes and spacecraft that getting used to a simple car again was almost comical.

Tracy was a senior in high school and a gorgeous dark-headed woman. She was also bright. She was taking a full load of senior classes, including one Honors class, and at night, was enrolled in a regional occupational program to gain secretarial skills. She told her big brother that she wanted a government position, not a position in some company that would go out of business or fire her for wearing her stockings crooked or something "stupid like that". Tracy also had a sense of humor that wouldn't quit, though for the life of Tony, he couldn't figure out where she'd gotten that from. His dad was somewhat stuffy with no sense of humor. His mother was more flighty, a person who believed that fairy tales and wishes could come true if you only wished hard enough. So Tracy's sense of humor was a mystery to him. It crossed his mind once, and only once, that she could hold her own with Roger, even with the six or seven year difference in their ages. He put that thought out immediately - he didn't want his sister, who hopefully was inexperienced in the ways of men, mixed up with someone as experienced as Roger.

While he was at home, though, Tony was handed information that surprised the life out of him. After 25 years in Fowlers Corners, Ohio, the Nelsons would be moving to Bridgeport, Connecticut, that coming summer. Tony's dad had been given a transfer four months earlier, but had managed to postpone it so that Tracy would be able to complete high school and secretarial school where she had lived all of her life. Tony's mother asked him to go through everything in his room before he left, and either pack it up and take it with him, sell it, give it away, or otherwise get rid of it. She didn't want to move it!

Thus constituted the majority of time that Tony spent at home. He boxed up some stuff and took it to the local Goodwill agency for their giveaways. He advertised in the newspaper to sell some of the better "stuff". But the majority were boxed up, and would be later freighted to wherever Tony went - including an old Civil War cannonball, now rusted, that Tony had found when digging around in an empty field when he was a child.

Tony's orders came a week after he got home. He was going to be posted at NASA, Cocoa Beach - which was fine with him. The phone rang at the Nelson household a little later, and it was Roger. He'd gotten the same orders. He wasn't sure about Pete yet, as Pete hadn't called him. They didn't spend lots of time on the phone. He knew Roger's mother didn't have a lot of money for phone bills, and doubted that Roger would remember to reimburse his mother for the call.

So in mid-March, 1963, Tony boarded a plane bound for Orlando, Florida, where he would be picked up by a NASA official and escorted to a temporary barracks arrangement. His "household goods" were shipped by freight to a storage facility to await dispersal, also in Cocoa Beach.

In the meantime, Roger flew home with his mother to New Castle, Pennsylvania. He had paid for her ticket to his graduation. He figured she'd missed his college graduation because neither of them could afford the transportation ticket, so he wasn't going to let her miss The Graduation of his life, Astronaut Corps. His mother had been so proud to see him receive his astronaut wings and the jumpsuit that had the meatball patch, the official NASA logo.

When Roger got back to New Castle, he found he had even a greater surprise. New Castle was so proud of having an astronaut call their place "home" that they held a parade in his honor. His mother told him that he'd have to give a speech after they got back to City Hall at the end of the parade, so he thought of his best flight jokes and one-liners and decided to make a comedy routine about it. If anyone gave him any guff about that, he'd just say that's what Alan Shepard would do. Everyone knew Alan Shepard, one of the most famous astronauts in the corps (and now, his mentor, even though Shep didn't know it). But no one gave Roger any problems with it at all. Many remembered Roger Healey, and some of his grammar school teachers came up to him and told him that they never thought their favorite class clown would become an astronaut. One teacher, who never thought he'd amount to anything because of his dyslexia, told him how proud SHE was of being wrong for a change, and that it was a humbling experience. He filed that knowledge away for future reference.

Days and evenings were filled with one girl after another. Many of his old girlfriends were married now, but he managed to find new ones by referrals from the old ones and by stopping in bars. Occasionally he scored, but more often, he didn't. He wondered if he was losing his touch, or if he was just being fussier. The latter wasn't a bad idea. However, it began to occur to him that his status as ASTRONAUT was now scaring off some hometown girls. Roger remembered Dayna's parting letter, about astronauts being gone a lot, and some other girls' comments about space flight being dangerous and the profession being lumped right up there with policemen for dangerous jobs. Well, if that's how the girl felt, that's how they felt. He wasn't ready to get serious with any girl, not for awhile. He wanted to have at least two to three space missions completed before he even thought about marriage, and even then, he better have the right girl.

After he'd been home a week, he got the orders he'd been waiting for: NASA, Cocoa Beach. A plane ticket was enclosed, leaving out of Pittsburgh. He picked up his mom's phone and dialed Tony's house in Fowlers Corners. When he was done, he remembered to leave a couple of dollars stashed on his mom's dresser, for the long distance call. He'd matured that much.

So, Roger took a bus down to Pittsburgh, where he caught the plane to Orlando. There, he hooked up in the airport again with Tony Nelson. That's when they were introduced to their staff psychiatrist and astronaut supervisor, Dr. Alfred Bellows.

**CHAPTER 15 - JEANNIE - THE 20th CENTURY**

Fawzia spelled her spirit out of the bottle in the middle of the 20th century. She hadn't

been out of the bottle in 400 years, having been slightly disappointed that nothing was happening anywhere near her little island prison. She had stayed in that ethereal state, mostly sleeping, for a very long time. She began to wonder if her imprisonment was going to be permanent. Djinni don't die easily, but thoughts of giving up on life had started to crowd her mind. Being a positive being, seeing something good in everything, she decided that she would eventually be freed. Allah was just saving her for something - or someone - special.

As she spelled herself out, she was amazed by what she saw. Soaring overhead, something she thought was a bird, was not! It was some sort of flying machine! There were still no ships or boats within miles of her island. She had to spell herself in and out of the bottle several times over the next few months, trying to learn everything she could about the changes in the world.

On one trip, she determined that it was about 1957 A.D. That meant that she was close to 2000 years old, though she was still unsure of her exact birth date and year. Further exploration revealed that there not only aeroplanes, there was some sort of a rocket being developed. There was a big race between something called the United States, and that old country Russia, to get into space first. Fawzia remembered discussions of the moon and the stars as she was growing up. Mostly, the stars and the moon caused problems for her kind, the djinn. So they were not very interested in studying them, or traveling into the heavens. Somewhere in her thoughts was "What is the United States?" On yet another spiritual trip from the bottle, she found out that it was a new country, one that had sprung up and grown in just over 200 years to a sizeable country and that they were quite intelligent people. A trip about a year later revealed that it was on another continent, far away from where she was currently located, and that the United States and Israel, a country near to her own, had been enemies.

Fawzia spelled herself back into the ethereal state, a state in which she did not come out from until early in 1965.

**CHAPTER 16 - TONY AND ROGER - COCOA BEACH**

Arriving in Orlando, Tony and Roger were greeted by a man who would become their

supervisor, Dr. Alfred Bellows. At first they were quite surprised to have a psychiatrist for a supervisor. After some quiet discussion away from him later, Tony and Roger decided that perhaps the Astronaut Corps was so stressful that they needed someone to keep them on an even keel. Their first impression of Dr. Bellows was "stuffy, proper, and polite." Roger was determined to try to get the man to lighten up a little and get a sense of humor, but Tony told him, he should be careful not to make the man mad. He had the right to put them out of the space program at any time.

Dr Bellows dropped them off at a temporary barracks, another old motel designed to house astronauts temporarily. He told them that they'd have a choice between living in 6 man barracks down at Patrick, until base housing was ready, or civilian apartments right in Cocoa Beach. Knowing that they'd have an immediate raise in salary now that they were in the astronaut corps, both figured on an off-base apartment and a cheap car. Tony had saved most of his pay since joining the service and had a substantial amount in a savings account in Houston. He only had to send for it. Roger had let money slip through his fingers a little faster, but had no way of spending much of anything in Houston - so he'd saved most of his Houston pay. Same bank as Tony had used, same availability.

After checking in, in the morning, with Dr Bellows, they were assigned a Staff Sargent who transported them around Cocoa Beach to get them settled in. They had the week to get settled, and the following Monday, training would begin in earnest. The staff sargent helped them find an apartment, which they decided they'd share for awhile, then took them to a used car place where he knew they'd get good deals. Each man wired Houston for their money, and bought a small used car. Roger figured that in 6 months, when his time-in-service pay came up, he'd get a NEW car, something flashy that would attract women.

On the following Monday, training began in earnest. They hooked up with Pete Conway and two other guys that they'd gone to Houston with, and the fivesome were often seen off base checking out what Cocoa Beach had to offer - even Tony Nelson. He was where he wanted to be now, and could take a little time to see what life - and females - had to offer. His next step was space, but he knew that as long as he stayed in shape and didn't miss any training sessions, he would be as eligible as anyone else for some of the manned missions coming up.

Two weeks after he reported in, Captain Tony Nelson was called to the office of General Wingard Stone. General Stone was Dr. Bellows' immediate superior, so Tony wondered why he was called in. He came to an immediate Attention position.

"Good morning, Tony!", the General said lightly. "How are you today?"

"Just fine, sir. Ready for training, of course," Tony said, putting on his best military voice.

"Oh, At Ease, Tony. I mean, relax. I don't stand on all that military ceremony here. It's NASA, not the Air Force Base," the General commented. Tony immediately dropped out of Attention and into a more comfortable position. "I've got a job for you to do."

"With pleasure, sir. What can I do for you?"

"I should make sure of one thing before I ask this. Are you married?"

"No, sir."

"Engaged, seeing any particular girl? Promised to someone back home?"

"No, sir, free of all female - encumbrances," Tony said, slightly puzzled.

"Good. You'll find one thing out about astronaut service. It isn't ALL training and physical fitness. You'll be sent out on public relations trips, goodwill tours, ribbon cutting ceremonies, and - the most fun of all for some of our single astronauts - dates with girls," General Stone added. As an afterthought, he added, "You - do - go out with girls, right?"

"Of course, sir. Don't most men?"

"These days, you never know, and you hate to ask. But from things said by your training mates, I gather that you don't date as often as they do. You were a loner in Houston."

"Somewhat, sir. I preferred to spend my time in flight school, Top Gun and astronaut training, learning as much as I could and studying. There wasn't much time left for girls."

"That, I understand. I haven't had all that training, but I understand that it's pretty grueling. So, I have a little request of you."

"Sir?" Tony questioned.

"One of the United States Senators from Florida is coming through here with his wife and daughter. The daughter is 19, and needs an escort at the dinner that we are hosting in their honor. Would you do the honors of escorting the young lady?" the General requested.

"But sir ... she's just a little older than my sister!" Tony tried to protest lightly. He wasn't thrilled about being set up with a teenaged girl. He was already 23.

"I'm not asking you to marry her, Captain Nelson. Only to be her escort at the evening dinner. It's tomorrow night. Your military uniform," he gestured towards the blue dress uniform that Tony was wearing, "would be fine. Meet us here at the office at 5:00 pm tomorrow. Oh, and Tony. Another suggestion. If you don't already have one, you might want to run into town to Hagan's and pick up a tuxedo. They sell used ones for a song, and if you do these dinners a lot, you'll want to have a tux on hand. White jacket, black pants." The General turned and sat at his own desk, so Tony knew he was dismissed.

Cornered! That's how he felt. He tried to picture himself dating some of his sister's friends, and he couldn't. Maybe, he though, trying to think of the bright side in everything, maybe this girl would be more mature than the average 19 year old. Maybe she'd be downright pleasant and he would enjoy the date.

He found out later that Roger had a date for the same dinner, being set up in the same manner by General Stone. Tony had to laugh at that - Roger, who could usually get his own dates, had to go out on a command date too.

The General's comments were correct. He had a good time, and this was the start of a lot of command performances. Tony not only went out with the Senator's daughter, but a visiting General's daughter, the niece of one of the colonels at NASA, and the daughter of a general down at Patrick Air Force Base. Plus he donned his "new" tux on several other occasions, where the entire Cocoa-Beach based Astronaut Corps had to show up. One such occasion had them all up until 2 in the morning, and then they were expected to be in simulators at 5:00 a.m. bright and shiny like new pennies. To say that the whole corps dragged themselves in looking like wet beach blankets, was putting it mildly. Even stuffy and proper Dr Bellows had to stifle a laugh.

Tony had another bout with his recurring dream right after that simulator training. He was under stress again, and this time the dream came in strong and the girl, quite clear. He knew exactly what she was wearing this time, but there was no way that he was going to tell Roger. He would refer him to Dr Bellows and they'd wash him right out of the space program. The rest was still harmless, or at least he thought so. The girl was imprisoned in some sort of close quarters, pounding on the sides, yelling, "Let me OUT of here!" several times. This time, in response, he yelled, "Darling, I'm closer than ever, just wait! I'll get you!" Roger woke him up.

"That dream again, Tony?"

"Yeah, Rog'. It's becoming clearer, though. And I feel so - so darned sorry for her. She's cramped up in some sort of close quarters, she pounds on the sides and wants out. And I feel so darned helpless that I can't let her out!" Tony clearly felt bad.

"Still no idea of what she's wearing, so you can get some idea of who she might be?"

"No," Tony lied. "Still the same old pink billowy thing."

"Well, we've been under a lot of stress again. Every time you have this dream, it's because you're under a lot of stress. Why not get up and go for a jog?"

Tony looked at the clock. "At one in the morning, Rog'? NASA will think I'm off my rocker!"

"Maybe you are ... that rocker is called stress. We're all under competition for those solo flights next year," Roger reminded him. "You're not the only one that wants it, and we all know that any of us can get one. I want it, too. And we both know that if the other one gets it, we're gonna be jealous, right?"

Tony laid back down and before going back to sleep, wondered just who this pink lady was, and why she kept trying to come into his dreams at night. She was still, to him, the vision of the perfect woman for him. He wondered if he would ever meet her, and if he did, what he'd say.

**CHAPTER 17 - DR BELLOWS - COCOA BEACH**

This new batch of astronauts coming into Cocoa Beach were an interesting lot. Every

single one of them was from one of the services. The only service not represented, other than the Coast Guard, were the Marines. That didn't surprise Alfred Bellows. Looking over their service records, every single one of them had a college degree graduating either Cum Laude, Summa Cum Laude or Magna Cum Laude. Dr Bellows respected that, as he graduated Summa Cum Laude himself, meaning wonderful grades. Then looking at their Officer Candidate School and flight school records, every one of them were top students. Only two in this batch had not been to Top Gun flight school.

Their medical and psychological records were equally interesting. Picking up Tony Nelson's, he noticed one entry that intrigued him. Captain Nelson had been having recurring dreams about a woman trapped and unable to get out. The psychiatrist at Houston had chalked it up as symbolic of Captain Nelson's stress. Colonel Alfred Bellows made a pencil note to keep an eye on that, and make sure that Captain Nelson was not having these dreams again. He felt it could be more significant than that.

Another notable thing about this batch of astronauts was that none of them were married. He had long since felt that the married astronaut was the more secure and stable astronaut. In talking to the men, individually, he ascertained that at least one of them was a ladies' man and would probably be the one most likely to remain a bachelor for the rest of his astronaut days. That astronaut was none other than Captain Roger Healey. The rest seemed to date fairly often, with the least being Captain Tony Nelson. Knowing Captain Nelson's recurring dream, he felt that was strange. Dr Bellows went to his superiors and suggested that they have a mixer dance. It would be a command obligation for all unmarried NASA people, male and female, and they would invite the community of Patrick Air Force Base as well. General Stone thought that was a marvelous idea. He went home and told his daughter that the mixer would be a command performance for her, as well.

**CHAPTER 18 - MELISSA STONE **- **COCOA BEACH**

General Wingate Stone had a 21 year old daughter, a beautiful brunette who had just

graduated from the University of Florida at Miami with a degree in History. Melissa hadn't told her father, but she had only gone to college to obtain her "Mrs" degree. The problem was, she expected to find the right husband there, but didn't succeed. Now she wasn't sure what she was going to do. Other than obtaining employment with the U.S. Government or a private company as a historian, which didn't interest her at the moment, she wasn't skilled at anything else. Her father had expressed a willingness to send her to secretarial school, or suggested a number of temporary careers that she could take on while trying to decide what to do with her life. She was still determined to pick up that "Mrs" degree someplace. She just had to find the right man to make the "Mr" part.

So when Melissa received the word that there would be a big mixer at NASA with lots of eligible males looking over what Cocoa Beach had to offer, she immediately went to her closet. Asking her father, was this mixer formal or informal, she got the word that this one would be informal, with a more formal ball just before Christmas. She found the perfect outfit, and went shopping for accessories. She was bound to land a husband at this ball. After all, her father and Dr Bellows had both said that some of the newest astronauts were among the most intelligent and best looking men that had come through the base in a long time. One of them, she didn't know which one yet, was going to be hers.

**CHAPTER 19 - TONY AND TRACY - COCOA BEACH AND WASHINGTON DC**

In the middle of the summer, right before General Stone's mixer, Tony Nelson called his home in Fowlers Corners to some startling news. His family home, the one he had grown up in, had been sold and his parents would be moving to Bridgeport at the end of July. Even more surprising was Tracy. Her secretarial qualifications had gained her employment in the nation's capital and she was living outside of Georgetown with three other secretaries. The man she was working for was going to be transferred before the end of the year, to the US Embassy in Rome, Italy. Tracy was invited to go, and had accepted. Tony' mom told him that he needed to get up to Washington, DC to see her sometime before November, if he wanted to see her before she left. Tony talked to Dr Bellows, and he would be sent on the next Public Relations mission to Washington, DC., flying an Air Force jet into Andrews. He could take Capt Healey with him.

The mixer was interesting, but not exciting, to Tony. He met all sorts of girls, including General Stone's daughter. The little black book that Roger had given him in Houston had a few names and numbers added to it that evening. He decided that when he got back from Washington, D.C., and when training became a little less brutal (WOULD that ever happen?) , then he would date a little more.

He flew to Washington, D.C., solo, on a mission for General Stone. He was to deliver some papers to the Pentagon. A car would be available at Andrews for his use, and he could take it up to the office building where Tracy worked. Roger would have liked to have gone to Andrews with him, and look for some of his former cohorts, but he was scheduled for a simulator on the same day and couldn't be released. In a way, Tony thought, that was for the best. If Roger had wanted to go into D.C. with him, he would have had to introduce Roger to Tracy, and that just wasn't something he wanted to do. He wasn't ashamed of either of them - just scared that Roger would try to pull something on Tracy. Tony was too protective of her to allow that. As far as he was concerned, Tracy and Roger would never meet - - ever.

He found Tracy's office, but at the moment he got there, she was on an errand. He sat down to wait, still outfitted in his jumpsuit, the one that Roger jokingly called the "pumpkin meatball suit" because it was orange and had the NASA "meatball logo" (as it was called) patch on it, as well as his last name. It was his flight suit, one required when flying any NASA or military aircraft, and he'd taken an F-105 to get here today.

Tracy walked in, wearing a very smart dress and looking very mature for her just-about-19 age. Professionally, she took a seat, looked across at the man in orange sitting there waiting for her, and ... screamed in delight.

"TONY! BIG BROTHER! You got here!" She jumped up from her desk, came back around it and threw her arms around him excitedly. "Why are you here? How is NASA treating you? When are you going up in flight?"

"Whoa, little lady. One question at a time!" He hugged her in return. "General Stone had something priority that I just delivered to the Pentagon, so I came over here to say hello. Mom and Dad tell me you're going to Italy later this year, and I might not have another opportunity to come up and see you."

"Yes...Bernard, that's my boss...he just got a promotion to a position in the US Embassy in Rome, and he likes my skills so much that he wants to take me with him."

"That's ALL it is, isn't it, Tracy? I mean ... you're so young to be leaving the United States."

"Bernard is a gentleman, don't you worry, Tony. I'm still a virgin." When Tracy said that, Tony became a little embarrassed. "Oh, don't be such an old fashioned fuddy duddy. I can tell you that, you're my brother. Now, you haven't answered my question. When are you going up in space? Ever since I can remember, you wanted to fly!"

"On space, I don't know yet, Tracy. We're all in competition for the manned flights that are supposedly starting next year. Dr Bellows just told three of us that it's between us - myself, my best friend and roommate Roger Healey, and Pete Conway. We're the best trained and the best pilots. Dr Bellows is hoping there will be three manned flights so that he won't have to decide between the three of us. Then he'll just draw names as to who goes first."

"But you still fly a lot, don't you?"

"At least forty hours a month. That's how I got here. I've got a jet parked at Andrews," Tony told her proudly. "Can you take lunch? I can be here for another couple of hours, then I've got to go back to Cocoa Beach."

Tracy checked with Bernard, who told her to go to lunch and take as long as she needed, just bring him back a sandwich and a cola to eat at his desk. Bernard handed her a 5-spot and told her to use the change to treat her brother to something. Bernard was impressed that his secretary's brother was an upcoming astronaut. Tony and Tracy found a little café down the plaza where they could eat outside. Though uniforms were common on the plaza, Tony's orange NASA jumpsuit got some attention. Two reporters stopped him for comments on the American space program. Tracy was impressed, though Tony's required comments were, "We're excited about space, we're well trained and ready to go as soon as the program is ready for it." For everything else, "No Comment", or "Please ask NASA Public Relations" was the required answer.

Back at the Office building, Tony had to give his sister a hug and the admonition to "please write". She gave him the same thing, especially to let her know if he "was going to get married or anything like that." He made her promise the same thing. As he looked at Tracy, not knowing when the next time would be when he would see her again, he almost cried. This was his baby sister, and it was almost too much for him to realize that she was moving out of the country. That was a long way to move, for a not-quite-19 year old. She was still a babe in the woods, and naive as could be. It was scary.

**CHAPTER 20 - TONY AND MELISSA - COCOA BEACH**

A few weeks later, Tony looked at his developing "Little Black Book", picked up the phone, and dialed one of the numbers. The gal that had impressed him the most at the mixer had been the General's daughter, Melissa Stone. He decided to take her to dinner and a movie if she wanted to go. She was delighted and accepted. He thought he could hear Wingate Stone in the background saying, "WHO are you going out with?" The next day, before he left work to get Melissa, General Stone took Tony into his office and told him a little about his daughter. Tony listened politely, shook the General's hand, behaved like a man that any father would like his daughter to go out with, and then went to the Stone house to pick up Melissa. After dinner, they went to see a movie of Melissa's choice (what Roger would probably label a "Chick thing"), then he delivered her back home with only a chaste little kiss at the door. Melissa wasn't happy with that chaste little kiss. She pulled Tony back and gave him more of a kiss to remember. It knocked his socks off.

Two days later, he went out with the daughter of a colonel from Patrick Air Force Base. This gal was 19, closer to Tracy's age, but a little more mature than Tony's sister. He took this one bowling, since Deanna said she liked to bowl. LIKED to bowl? The girl was an expert bowler. It was all Tony could do to keep from making a jerk of himself. He decided not to take her out again. When the girl wasn't bowling, her hands were roaming all over Tony's body, not in places he really wanted a woman's hands when they were in public.

Life in the same apartment with Roger was getting a little difficult, as well. It wasn't just his own neatness against Roger's sloppiness. There were times when Roger came right out and asked Tony to depart the apartment so that he could bring a girl in. Tony hadn't had one occasion to return the insult. Without telling Roger, but consulting a real estate agency, a bank, a mortgage company, and his own savings account, he found a small cottage, a 2 bedroom house in a tract development in Cocoa Beach, that was a rent-to-own. He could move in it right away and decide whether or not he wanted to buy it. The option to purchase was in a year. It gave him extra time to save money with which to put a down payment and also buy a little furniture of his own. He gave Roger fair warning, a month before the house became available, that he was moving out. Roger didn't know whether to be delighted or insulted. He consulted his own finances and decided that perhaps, having ones own apartment was not only affordable, but there would be no further problems with females coming to visit - for either of them.

Right after moving into his own home at 1020 Palm Drive, Cocoa Beach, Tony started to date Melissa often. They were seen everywhere together. He really liked her. She was intelligent, witty, personable, tolerated Roger's jokes, understood the needs of the astronaut service thanks to her father, and was happy going out or just in Tony's house having dinner. The only thing about Melissa that bothered Tony was her aggressiveness. Sometimes it was downright irritating. He would make a decision and then 'because of my father', she would overturn his decision and he would be forced to go along with it. At the time, he passed it off deciding that if you date your own General's daughter, there were some perks and some disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage, of course, was that she could tattle on you and get you removed or, at least, in trouble. The perks were when the father liked you, he was willing to do things for you at work.

The formal ball that General Stone had decided to hold to mix the singles at NASA and Patrick would be held in early December, in time for Christmas. Technically, everyone was supposed to come stag. In reality, almost every astronaut had a date thanks to the informal mixer. Roger was taking a girl from Patrick Air Force Base, the daughter of a Colonel. Pete Conway was taking a NASA secretary from down the hall from his office. Roger was seeing the Colonel's daughter pretty regularly, making Tony wonder if it was serious.

After the formal ball and Christmas, Tony and Melissa double-dated three times with Roger and Darlene. It never went beyond three times. It was very clear that Roger and Melissa did not like each other, and Tony wasn't very fond of Darlene, either.

"Tony, I'm telling you, that Melissa is one pushy broad. One day, she's going to push you so far into a corner that you'll never get out," Roger told him one day at Tony's house.

"Darlene is after only one thing, Roger, so you're not perfect either," Tony told him.

"Yeah? What's Darlene after?"

"The 'M-R-S' degree," Tony replied.

"You think Melissa isn't after that, too?"

"Maybe..."

"Yeah, Tony, she wants you all right. She wants you to be her puppet, to do her bidding. You watch. I'm right. I know women." Roger was indignant, and firmly believed what he was saying.

"Then watch your own, or I'm going to be standing as the best man in your wedding." Tony was just as sure.

As a result, both men went back to playing the field. Tony told Melissa that he needed time to concentrate on being an astronaut, and who knows what Roger told Darlene. But the two men double dated with other women, indicating that perhaps Melissa Stone had succeeded in one thing: waking Tony Nelson up to women.


	4. Chapters 21 27

**CHAPTER 21 - TONY - COCOA BEACH - COUNTDOWN TO SPACE TRAVEL**

Three manned flights were scheduled for the 1964-1965 season, all Gemini flights. Mercury flights years earlier had all been monkeys and seasoned astronauts. Alan Shepard came to Cocoa Beach with Gus Grissom and John Young once, training for Gemini 3. Dr Bellows got clearance to bring Roger to see Shep. Shep remembered him from Houston and even made a wisecrack. "How do you like your pumpkin suit now, Healey? Getting enough use out of it yet?" Roger Healey was in awe. Shep not only remembered him, but the joke. For years, whenever Shep would see Healey, there would be a comment about the pumpkin suit. Roger would never live it down, and the funny thing was, he didn't mind.

Every month, Tony got a letter from Rome, Italy, from his sister Tracy, and every other week, a letter from his mother in Bridgeport. One of the letters from his sister rocked him. She was 19 years old and engaged to an American citizen, a politician named Walter Fitzhugh . He was 29 years old and he was a lot like Tony, according to Tracy. One thing was certain - Tracy had kept her promise to let Tony know if she was "planning to get married or anything like that." His mother was in shock, and was just waiting to see if this was really serious or just a passing fling with Tracy.

In February of 1965, Tony returned the favor on Tracy, writing to her of his engagement to Melissa Stone. He had been a little surprised at himself, proposing to her in the park across the street from his house in Cocoa Beach. He gave her a small engagement ring. She accepted immediately, and their wedding was planned for October, in 8 months. When Tracy got the news of her brother's engagement, she wrote him back - she'd broken her engagement to Walter. She didn't think she could live with someone as demanding as Walter was. Tony wondered why Tracy didn't realize that before, then just figured that Tracy wasn't going to tell him everything about her relationships with men any more than he was going to tell her about his relationship to Melissa.

Shortly after Tony proposed to Melissa, he and Roger were scheduled for a 48 hour training in a Gemini simulator. This meant 48 hours of togetherness with your partner - no showers, no baths, only food in toothpaste tubes and small wrappers. You had to get along fairly well. As long as there was only a small amount of space and no girls around, both Tony and Roger felt they'd do pretty well. After all, what had bugged them most about living together was Tony's neatness vs Roger's sloppiness, and Roger's need to bring in girls at all hours of the day and night into a one-bedroom place. A space capsule simulator - well, no girls allowed. Period.

However, Tony had a female "visitor" into this capsule. He and Roger were both asleep, monitored only by the attendant who was taking the night shift so that Dr Bellows and General Stone could go home and sleep. Tony had that recurring dream again, one that he had not had for

a while. The girl was clearer than ever - knockout gorgeous, blond, wearing a -what? - and still screaming "Get me OUT of here! I want OUT, NOW! I have been in here FOREVER!" Tony called after her, "Darling! I'm getting there but this capsule isn't moving fast enough for me!" It was enough to wake Roger, and the Attendant couldn't believe what he heard.

"Captain Nelson! Would you repeat what you just said?" The attendant said.

"This is Captain Healey. Captain Nelson is still asleep, sir. It was some sort of crazy dream he just had. Don't worry about what he just said."

"Captain Healey, I am required by General Stone and Colonel Bellows to write down EVERY thing that I hear, even if it is part of a dream. What did Captain Nelson just say?"

"Well, I didn't catch every word either. But it was something like 'I'm getting there but this capsule isn't moving fast enough for me,'" Roger repeated as much. He knew what Tony's dream was about, but he wasn't going to repeat it. He had the funny feeling that Bellows would take this dream and twist it around enough to take Tony off the Gemini roster, and himself with it since they were partners.

When Dr Bellows came back on duty, Tony was awake. By then, Roger had whispered to him what had occurred during the night. When Dr Bellows started to question him about the dream, Tony clammed up and simply said he didn't remember what the dream was about, no it had nothing to do with any dreams he'd had before, it was just an isolated dream. The following day, when he came out of the simulator, Tony found himself requested to be on Dr Bellows couch within ten minutes. All he wanted to do was go home and snuggle with Melissa, who was supposed to cook dinner for him that night. He'd even given her the keys to his house so she could start cooking before he got home. Good practice for when they got married, she'd said. Instead, he was going to Bellows' psychiatric looney bin, and who knows when he would get home.

Once on Dr Bellows' couch, he tried to relax, and closed his eyes again. Dr Bellows asked him about the recurring dream that he'd had in Top Gun and again in Astronaut Training. Since Tony knew it was in his psychiatric evaluation, he told him a few of the details of the dream, leaving out only the attire that the woman in the dream was wearing. He told himself later that he couldn't be sure of the attire anyway. Then Dr Bellows asked him if he was SURE that this was not the same dream that he'd had before. He said, he didn't think so, though the details of this dream were still rather fuzzy to him. Dr Bellows asked him why he thought the capsule wasn't going fast enough for him when the simulator had clocked it at 12000 mph. Tony thought about what kind of crack Roger would make, something about the Indy 500 probably. He told Dr Bellows, "Well, we have to win the race to the moon somehow, don't we?" Roger would have been proud of him. Dr Bellows wasn't so impressed, but he let Tony go home after grilling him on the same subject three more times.

No doubt about it. One of these days he was going to figure out where this girl was coming from, and maybe it would put an end to his dreams, and his problems. Maybe.

**CHAPTER 22 - JEANNIE - 1965**

Fawzia al Babilonia came out of her ethereal state to the drone of something overhead.

She was very frustrated and angry for being cooped up for so very long. Spelling her spirit out of the bottle temporarily, she found that it was early 1965 A.D. Over 2000 years she had been in that bottle, and she wanted OUT! NOW! The drone of something overhead was more of those flying machines she had seen a few years earlier. Checking out the sea, it appeared that the sea lanes still had not moved any closer to her. She spelled her spirit back into the bottle.

"Allah, I would like out of here, please. I have been in here over 2000 years and I have been very patient," Fawzia prayed in Persian. (She had yet to realize that Persia had gotten a new name.) She went on to describe to Allah all of the qualities that she would like in a new master, but added, "In reality, Allah, I will accept one with some of those qualities missing, if only to get out of here sooner!"

The Blue Djinn's bottle was down the hill from Fawzia's bottle, as it had arrived on her island a number of years before. However, his bottle was already buried in the sand away from the sandiest portion of the beach.

**CHAPTER 23 - TONY AND MELISSA - THE ENGAGEMENT MONTHS**

Being engaged to Melissa was a lot of fun, and Tony was looking forward to making her

his wife on schedule in October - providing a space mission didn't interfere. There were three missions planned, and his solo venture was one of them. He was going either in July, August, or October. They planned the October wedding date around the mission's date, and hoped that nothing would have to change it. Their plans were to be married at the NASA Chapel. Tony wanted only a few people - his parents, a few from NASA, and her parents. Melissa had other ideas. The way she was planning it, it was going to be the Wedding of the Century with everyone in Cocoa Beach invited. It was the first source of contention regarding their marriage.

Roger had nothing more to say about it than, "I told you, she's pushy." But he agreed to be Tony's best man. The two had to make sure that their military dress whites were up to snuff, as they hadn't used them since before Astronaut Training. Fortunately most of the rest of the wedding plans were the bride's problem. Tony was relieved.

It hadn't meant to happen, and they had not really talked about it before it happened. Tony was a traditionalist - you simply did not sleep with your fiancee until she was your wife. However, it didn't work out that way. One day, after Melissa had made dinner at Tony's house for him, they were on the sofa in front of the fireplace - one of Melissa's favorite places to be, he'd found out - and before he knew it, neither of them had a stitch of clothes on. He knew HE hadn't initiated it. Perhaps Roger was right - Melissa WAS aggressive. Tony wondered if her father knew just how much. The fact remained, however, and these times became more and more often as the wedding got closer. At this rate, there would be no surprises after the wedding, that was certain, Tony thought.

Roger started planning Tony's bachelor party in July. He planned one major bash, inviting the entire Astronaut Corps including those in Houston. (You never knew when a Houston-based astronaut needed flight hours or some training gig that wasn't available over there.) Using his humor, he got most of the Cocoa Beach-based astronauts to chip in to pay for everything and they were all looking forward to it.

Melissa came over to Tony's house one night that month to cook dinner for him. He had spent the day in rigorous training, which included two hours in the "Vomit Comet", a jet plane designed to get astronauts to feel the extent of zero gravity for short periods of time up in space. It had that name for a reason, so Tony wasn't feeling so great when he got home.

"Why don't you go in the bedroom and lie down for awhile? Dinner won't be ready for another hour anyway," Melissa told him. Tony changed clothes and laid down - and promptly fell asleep.

Twenty minutes later, he had his recurring dream again. Same girl, same problem, being locked up somewhere. Tony could see that she was locked up in pretty tight quarters, still wearing the pink filmy thing. He tossed and turned, wishing he could help her, finally shouting out, "I'll be there soon! Stay there! Don't go away!"

Melissa came running into the bedroom, shocked at what she had heard. "Tony, wake up!" He tossed and turned some more. "Tony, sweetheart, wake UP!" He jerked awake pretty quickly. "What was that all about? Where are you going that you'll be there soon? Who are you telling not to go away?"

Tony then knew that he'd had this dream in front of Melissa. Melissa could tell her father, who would relay it to Dr Bellows - and there would go the orbit he was supposed to go on. They'd move everybody else up one and he'd be shuttled - right out of the space program. So he wasn't going to tell her. "I don't know what you're talking about, Melissa."

"Tony, that was some dream. And you've only been asleep for what, 20 minutes or so? What was it about?" Melissa was trying to find out. "C'mon...You can tell me...I'm not going to tell my father."

"I don't remember ... " Tony was stubborn sometimes.

The dream repeated itself four more times before Tony Nelson was scheduled to go into flight. One time, he and Roger were in the simulator alone, and it was just for 24 hours. Fortunately Dr Bellows had just stepped away from the simulator long enough to get a cup of coffee, so Roger didn't have to lie for him. Roger hated lying and knew that there were certain ways to get around telling the truth, usually with a humorous remark. The other times, Tony had been alone and just woke up thinking about the dream. He kept wondering, why was HE having this dream, and why was it always the same one? It was like watching a rerun on television, over and over, only more frustrating because the show didn't have an ending.

**CHAPTER 24 - ROGER - 1965**

Roger spent most of 1965 so busy training for space that he hardly had much time to

go out with girls, but he managed to find both the time AND the girls to go out with. Like when he was in college, though, he really liked it when the girl would make dinner for him at her place or his. Going out to eat all the time was really hard on a Captain's salary, even with the flight pay and astronaut bonuses thrown in. He had finally gotten his new car, a 1962 Ford T-bird with a convertible top. The payments on that alone were killing him, so he saved where he could. He even took in a roommate for awhile, to help with the rent. But that didn't work, for the same reasons as he couldn't room with Tony. He moved down the hall to a smaller place, and the rent was cheaper. LOTS cheaper.

Roger discovered that he wasn't too bad with some forms of gambling, but that was frowned upon by the Powers-That-Be at NASA. He was pretty good with horse racing, not too bad with craps (but he didn't like it), but a good poker game couldn't be ignored! It supplemented his income a little, but he had to be careful not to get caught. Having a bigger income would be wonderful - even if it meant being slightly illegal - he loved having THINGS. His T-bird was an example of one of the things he loved. Sometimes he wished for a fairy godmother that could wave a wand and give him everything he ever wanted. It would make life so much easier. Well, on the other hand, everyone had warned him that he'd probably make more money as a civilian engineer than he would in the military, even in the space business.

The three rookies who were the possibilities to go into space were himself, Tony Nelson, and Pete Conway. So the three of them were spending loads of time training. They were in and out of simulators, pouring over books and attending classes given by the civilian contractors building the spacecraft, going on survival missions, in freezing chambers, pressure chambers and steam machines - and if Roger Healey had to do one more push-up he thought he was going to crack up. The best place for push-ups, he thought, was on the Vomit Comet when it hit the G-force that made them feel weightless. He just didn't particularly like the feeling he got when coming off the Vomit Comet. It sure had that name for a reason! His mentor, Shep, had given it that name one time, and it stuck. The whole corps called it that, because most of them had felt that feeling while training on it.

Tony had gotten to fly to Washington DC on his own the previous fall, and Roger was supposed to go with him. However, at the last minute, Pete had to back out of the simulator training so Roger was scheduled in his place. Tony went alone. That was too bad, as Roger had been looking forward to seeing who was still stationed at Andrews.

Roger almost fainted when Tony announced that he was marrying Melissa Stone, the General's daughter, and asked Roger if he would be his Best Man. Of course Roger said yes - who else would do that duty - but he was surprised. He had really expected that Tony would be one of the last astronauts to get married.

One of the jobs done by the Best Man was to plan the Bachelor Party. Roger planned to give the best bachelor party ever given for an astronaut in Cocoa Beach. He thought it would be hard to get permission from The Suits to throw the party at NASA, where they wouldn't have to pay rent, but it was easy. The Suits all wanted an invitation, of course, and it had to be after hours when no one was scheduled for training.

**CHAPTER 25 - TONY'S MISSION - STARDUST I - OCTOBER 1965**

The timing was crucial. Blast off, or lift off as it is officially called, had to take place at a precise time. Everything on board the capsule had to occur at a specific time or the mission would be scrapped. Tony went into isolation 48 hours before the mission, staying in a trailer near the base of the rocket designed to place his capsule into orbit. When it came down, he was going to spend another 48 hours in isolation. Yet he would only be up in space for less than 12 hours! A lot of work goes into one tiny little flight, he thought, as Dr Bellows took him to his isolation trailer. He would be totally alone there, though he had a radio if he needed to contact someone. He would be monitored but not by radio, this time.

That was a good thing. On his last night in isolation, the night before his mission, he had that dream again. This time the girl was crystal clear, her outfit almost perfectly visible - she looked like something out of a story book. He tried to remember which story book, but couldn't.

She was blond, and she was still yelling, "I am so TIRED of being in here! Will someone PLEASE let me out!" This time, though, Tony didn't yell at her. In his dream, he merely said to her, "I'll be there soon. Just wait." He woke up thinking, "I know what this dream is all about! It's my desire to go into space! That girl crying 'let me out' is my psyche wanting to fly in space! Because I WILL be there soon! I WILL!" He figured out his dream, or he thought he had, and he felt SO much better. The "girl" was going to get out, that will to fly.

Loaded into his capsule the next day, listening to the deafening noise around him as the rockets fired, he thought about this dream - the dream of the girl, and how it coincided with his dream of outer space. He was getting his dreams, all right, and when he came back, he was going to marry the girl of his dreams, Melissa.

Well ... at least he thought Melissa was the girl of his dreams. In his mind, Melissa's aggressiveness was the one problem they were going to have in their marriage. Aggressive was one thing, but if she started ordering Tony around - well, that was one thing that Tony couldn't take. HE wanted to be the boss in a marriage - the master, if you wanted to call it that.

He heard Roger's voice giving some of the commands after lift-off, and that calmed him some. Roger, who he knew, would give anything to be sitting here in this seat today instead of the one he was sitting in back at the base. Despite Roger's wit and craziness, he had been a good friend and confidant for close to two and a half years now. He had never had such a good friend - even his best friends in high school and college had never been this close to him. Roger knew things about Tony Nelson that Michael and Doug could never have even guessed. He could trust Roger with anything - well, almost. His sister Tracy came up as the one thing Tony would never trust Roger with.

A strange noise came suddenly from outside the capsule, bringing Tony out of his reverie. There was a voice saying, "Control to Stardust I. Control to Stardust I. Come in, Tony."

"Stardust I to Control. Read you loud and clear," Tony responded.

"Tony. The final stage rocket misfired. We're going to have to bring you down. Stand by." It was Roger's voice. At least it was comforting, not a stranger.

"Gee, I was just getting warmed up," Tony responded. He heard Roger's chuckle as he told another man, "Tony has a sense of humor about this."

Then Tony heard General Stone's voice, "This is General Stone We have an emergency. Stardust I is coming down. Alert the 7th fleet." Tony knew then that he was somewhere over the Pacific as he was supposed to be, but coming down as he was not supposed to be. He wondered where.

The Capsule landed in the water at first, then floated to shore, which took about an hour. Once on land, Tony had to struggle to get the hatch opened from the inside, something that was supposed to be done by Navy guys from the outside. Their training had included emergencies like this, so he knew what to do.

Tony got out onto the beach, which turned out to be a really beautiful beach, on a deserted island. He took all of his emergency equipment out of the capsule, in case it floated back out to sea (as it probably would, and did). The emergency equipment included a life raft, sleeping bag, flimsy piece of cloth that could be called a "tent" by survivors, a couple of days worth of food, matches in a waterproof container, and specially designed signals. He had no idea how long he would be there, or how anyone would find him. He'd heard his future father-in-law, General Stone, call for the 7th fleet, but the Pacific Ocean was a mighty big ocean. Hopefully NASA had enough coordinates on him before he went down, to have a general idea of where to start to look. He may as well settle in and see what this island had to offer. It could be home for a very, very long time. Maybe forever.

**CHAPTER 26 - JEANNIE - HOW TO GET RESCUED**

A strange noise brought Fawzia from her ethereal state this time. Spelling her spirit

outside of the bottle once again, she laid eyes on a man. He was quite a distance away at this point, so she could not get a good look at him. But there was a man on this island, and at the edge of the water, some strange sort of contraption that looked a little like the stopper on her bottle. It was wide at one end, and narrow at the other, and on it was a door that was wide open.

Fawzia knew exactly what she had to do. She had to bring her spirit back inside the bottle and try to get that bottle closer to the man, down near to the beach. She had tried doing it from outside of the bottle, hundreds of years before, unsuccessfully. So she was going to have to try to roll it down to the beach.

Back inside the bottle completely, she began to rock back and forth. She asked for more strength to rock it, and pretty soon, she felt the bottle rolling down the hill. It felt as though it landed on sand. Then she heard whistling, and peeking outside the bottle, she saw the shadow of the man that her spirit had seen. He was nearby. He was doing something with rocks, but she did not know what. She really did not care what. She did not even care if he broke her bottle. It would succeed in getting her out of it after 2000 years. She made one last prayer to Allah, that this man would pick up her bottle and somehow free her from it, and that he would be a kind Master who would treat her well.

"Hey, what's this?" Fawzia heard a voice outside of her bottle. It sounded muffled, but after 2000 years, who cared how it sounded? It sounded kind, and that was important. Fawzia rocked the bottle a little, forcing it to roll a little more. The man picked it up, still on its side, placed it down elsewhere, so Fawzia rocked the bottle to roll it some more. The man picked it up, almost upright this time, and tried to get the stopper off. Fawzia took a breath. What if the stopper would not come off? Would the man keep trying, or give up?

The stopper came off with a pop. From her vantage point at the bottom of the bottle, Fawzia looked to the top and saw a human eye looking into her bottle. It was the most gorgeous hazel eye she had ever seen in her life. It didn't take long. The man decided to rub some of the sand off of the bottle, and that was all Fawzia needed. One rub of a bottle or a lamp containing a djinn or djinni is all it takes to summon that djinn out. And out came Fawzia in a huge puff of pink smoke - for the first time in over 2000 years.

**CHAPTER 27 - JEANNIE AND TONY - ON THE ISLAND**

Fawzia took one look at this beautiful hunk of a man, and knew that this was the Master she would and could serve for the rest of his life. So far he met every single one of her requirements: young, good-looking, kind, thoughtful enough to open her bottle. She could train him to be anything else she wanted. He was wearing some sort of strange outfit, a one piece coverall in blue with a strange patch with 4 English letters on it. His brown hair was short and neatly trimmed, and his whole physique eluded sex-appeal. And those eyes ... beautiful, hazel eyes.

Though not trained perfectly in the ways of the djinn, Fawzia immediately kneeled down and bowed to this new Master. In Persian, she said to him, "Your wish is my command, Master." He didn't appear to understand her. She couldn't resist giving him something that they both would remember forever: a kiss, her first one in more than two thousand years. As for the man, he was still in shock that she had come out of a bottle, and in a pink harem outfit.

He rubbed his eyes a little, and said in English, "I must have gone further into orbit than I thought." Fawzia understood enough English to know that he must think he was seeing things. He went on, "I mean, I've read about genies, but I never thought they really – it's like something out of the Arabian Nights!" Then he thought again. "My DREAM! This is what my dream has been all about! It's not stress, it's not my dream of space travel! YOU were in my dreams!"

Fawzia, not understanding what he was talking about, replied in Persian again, "My heart sings at having such a handsome Master."

Tony tried introducing himself, "I'm Captain Tony Nelson, US Air Force and NASA. How do you do?"

Fawzia replied in Persian, "I am yours to command."

Tony started to remember the stories that had been read to him and Tracy as they were growing up. "I suppose if I hadn't come along, you'd still be – hey! I rescued you! That means I get a free wish or something. Isn't that what Genies do? Well, of course it is." To Tony, she had just become "Jeannie". "So, I'll tell you what I wish, Jeannie. I wish there was a big beautiful B-69 flying in the sky right over my head."

After a brief discussion in two tongues, which only brought "Sey-mour!", a falcon, to Tony's arm, instead of his desired B-69, Tony finally figured out the command that he needed,

"Jeannie, I wish you could speak English!"

Continuing in her native Persian tongue, Fawzia/Jeannie suddenly switched to English. "Somehow I must find a way to please thee, Master!"

And so, with the powers bestowed on her by the mean Blue Djinn over 2000 years before, Jeannie was able to bring a helicopter to the island and thus ensure her own and Tony Nelson's rescue. Tony tried to free her before he left, but she wanted none of that. The Blue Djinn had given her orders to serve her rescuer as his Genie for the rest of his days, and Jeannie, liking exactly what she saw, decided to do just that. SHE wasn't about to let this one go for anything!

Tony Nelson brought Fawzia al Babilonia, AKA "Jeannie", home to 1020 Palm Drive in Cocoa Beach, and said "adieu" to his fiancee Melissa Stone several weeks later. Roger accidently found out about Jeannie about 4 months later, and Jeannie was added to the short list of things Tony couldn't trust Roger with, because to Roger, Jeannie spelled G-R-E-E-D. Things went along rather bumpily for a while, with Tony and Roger both fighting to keep knowledge of Jeannie from Dr Bellows. Finally, after four years of fighting with his conscience and his sense of reality, Tony proposed to Maharani Jeannie I while in her uncle's palace in Basenji. He had learned a lot about being a Master to a Djinn in those years. On December 2, 1969, he married her.

And as they say, fairy tales DO come true.

**Copyright 2004 by CAJeannieFan57/Donna**

**Disclaimer: **The characters in this fan fiction are mostly the creation of Sidney Sheldon, Screen Gems/Sony Pictures, for the 1965-1970 television show, "I Dream of Jeannie." His characters, and those of his writers (especially Jim Henerson), include Jeannie, Tony, Roger, Pete, Dr Bellows, General Stone, Melissa Stone, Bonnie Crenshaw, Diane Rodnick, and Mr. and Mrs. Nelson (Tony's parents).

The character of Tracy Nelson is based on a mention in the IDOJ episode, "Jeannie or the Tiger", when Tony tells his mother on the telephone, "give my love to Dad and Sis". The actual character was created and developed by CAJeannieFan57/Donna and OneOfRoger'sGirls/Jeni and has been used in their fan fiction episodes (post-IDOJ). These episodes are available at http/ MamaJeannie/Cathy has joined the writing team of Donna and Jeni as well. Tracy's full story is on that website as "Tracy's Story," in the Pre-Season section.

Astronaut Alan Shepard is a real astronaut of the 1950s/1960s. He was reputed to have a sense of humor that wouldn't quit, and to have made up the term "Vomit Comet" for the space program. Shep was the first American to go into space. (Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human into space, from the USSR.) Gus Grissom was also an astronaut, but lost his life on Apollo 1 during a launch pad fire. Gordon "Gordo" Cooper was also a real astronaut.

Information on astronaut training was gained from several sources, including library books (especially Moon Shot by Deke Slayton and Alan Shepard) and an Internet website, http/www.nasa.gov (and its many links). It was discovered that most astronaut training and billeting in the early 1960s was actually done at Houston Space Center (now Johnson Space Center), but literary license caused both Sidney Sheldon, as well as this author, to move some of it to Cocoa Beach.

Some portions of this story have been taken from early episodes of "I Dream of Jeannie" in an attempt to make some sense of certain inconsistencies. Examples would include Jeannie's ability to have visited many historical figures when she was supposedly imprisoned in her bottle and to remember certain eras in time. Other portions have been taken in order to tie this story into the actual series itself. Examples would include Tony's engagement to Melissa, his previous girlfriends (Bonnie Crenshaw and Diane Rodnick), and other brief references made in the run of the show.

Much other research was done, most of it online, to ensure that the storyline would be consistent with what was available in the 1960s and that our two astronauts could have been at any of the places where the story took them. The storyline itself belongs to CAJeannieFan57/Donna and OneOfRoger'sGirls/Jeni. Permission to borrow any portion of the story not belonging to Sidney Sheldon, Screen Gems or Sony Pictures Entertainment should be asked. Links to this story should be requested of the Webmaster for this website.

Thank you

Donna & Jeni Ransdell


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